Golly, Nell – those Chinese are sure hard to keep an eye on. They’ve got their busy little fingers in surreptitious business all over the place.

From trying to elbow sovereign nations off of their own Pacific island territories to buying up American farmland and industry – what was left?

The final frontier, of course.

They’ve spent the week littering little beepy, blinky UFO thingees all over the heavens.

#China's space plane apparently deployed 6 'mysterious wingmen' in orbit

China's reusable space plane just got a little more mysterious.

Just four days after being launched on its third mission, China's Shenlong ("Divine Dragon") robotic space plane seems to have placed six… pic.twitter.com/ooOTFcl01X

— Indo-Pacific News – Geo-Politics & Defense News (@IndoPac_Info) December 19, 2023

What could these mystery objects be? For one thing, they’re already transmitting signals, so they’re turned on and ready to do…something.

…The six mystery objects have been designated OBJECT A, B, C, D, E and F. According to satellite tracker and amateur astronomer Scott Tilley, OBJECT A appears to be emitting signals reminiscent of those emitted by objects that China’s space plane has released on previous missions.

“OBJECT A’s or nearby emission is reminiscent of earlier Chinese space plane ‘wingman’ emissions in the sense the signal is modulated with a limited amount of data,” Tilley told Space.com via email. “There is speculation that the emission from OBJECT A may be from an object close to it, but this is speculation not based on any evidence I’m aware of.” Tilley has referred to the objects as “mysterious wingmen” on X (formerly Twitter).

OBJECT D and E, meanwhile, appear to be emitting idle “placeholder” signals with no data accompanying them. “It should be noted that unlike emissions early in the Chinese space plane missions 1 and 2, these emissions are very intermittent and do not stay on long,” Tilley says. “It’s taken days of observations tracking pass after pass with dish antennas to come up with this data.”

The “space plane” they were burped from is a rocket launched, robotic Space Shuttle clone they call the “Shenlong” or “divine dragon.”

…The Shenlong was launched on a Long March 2F rocket on December 14 at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert, according to China’s official news service Xinhua. The reusable robotic aircraft is on a mission whose detailed objectives have not been disclosed to the public.

Wiki says there’ve only been a few pictures of it released since it was “revealed” in 2007, hence the “mystery” surrounding the vehicle itself.

However, this isn’t the first time it’s gone into orbit and disgorged a payload that had observers interested. Twice before the Shenlong has launched and left something behind.

…China’s space plane has exhibited similar behaviors in the past. On its two previous missions — which launched in September 2020 and August 2022, respectively — the spacecraft was seen releasing a small unknown object into orbit. It was speculated that the objects could be service modules, test articles for practicing placing payloads into orbit, or perhaps even small satellites used to monitor the space plane, SpaceNews wrote in November 2022.

There sure seems to be quite a lag between those missions, though, but in one case, that’s attributable to the fact these things can go out for lengthy periods. The last Shenlong mission was some 276 or so days in orbit. Robotic space vehicles are long-haul cruisers, that’s for sure.

…The launch comes just seven months after the spacecraft’s last mission, a much quicker follow-up compared to the first and second launches which happened 23 months apart, SpaceNews reports.

THIS trip is almost certainly connected to what’s happening at the end of the month on an American launch pad. There’s no doubt the little beepers are pre-positioned eyeballs in the sky from the greatest industrial copycats and filchers of technology on earth.

Boeing’s X-37B, the equally mysterious robotic space plane developed for the US Space Force…

…is scheduled to launch 28 December on the back of a Space-X Falcon Heavy rocket.

So, the Chinese managed to get cameras and instruments up just in time to kind of watch it go by.

Chinese 'Spaceplane' OBJECT's A and D just passed over and will come with <30km of each other according to https://t.co/U3MB3r68TP TLEs over the southern Atlantic ocean at 2023-12-20T01:33:00 UTC.

No emissions from either object on the last two passes. pic.twitter.com/juquPhndxQ

— Scott Tilley 🇺🇦 (@coastal8049) December 20, 2023

Maybe take a memento snapshot…or reading…or two. At least they can say they were there.

…The United States also operates a reusable robotic space plane, the Boeing-built X-37B. Similar to China’s Shenlong space plane, little is known about the exact operations or capabilities of the X-37B. The U.S. Space Force is currently set to launch the spacecraft atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket on Dec. 28 after several delays.

And the timing of the two reusable space plane launches isn’t a coincidence. “These are two of the most watched objects on orbit while they’re on orbit. It’s probably no coincidence that they’re trying to match us in timing and sequence of this,” General Chance Saltzman, U.S. Space Force’s Chief of Space Operations, said at a conference earlier this month.

Make no mistake about it – they’re doing it quietly, maybe it seems even under the radar considering everything else in the world going on – but the Chinese space program has been humming along…

…China has made major advances its space program, sending probes to distant planets and extending crewed mission times with a view to establishing a permanent presence in orbit—and eventually on the Moon.

Chinese officials maintain the country’s space program is civilian and scientific in nature. Meanwhile, it continues to achieve significant leaps in technological prowess and strategic capabilities.

…while our one constant bright spot continues to be Space X and smaller projects.

Chinese, aliens…we’re behind the outer space 8 ball.

We need to get our act together just in case.