China unveils unmanned space freighter

Chinese state aerospace company AVIC has unveiled a model of the country’s first uncrewed commercial spaceplane at the Zhuhai airshow.

The Haoloong-1, or Sky Dragon, is described as a low-cost reusable cargo shuttle that could be used to supply the Chinese space station. Spaceplanes are mounted on top of rocket boosters to get into orbit but after completing their mission glide back to a conventional runway on Earth.

NASA in the US has used similar concepts to supply its space stations for many years. The technology has improved markedly in the past decade with simpler, lighter heat shields to dissipate the extreme temperatures experienced on re-entry into the atmosphere.

The current Chinese station is supplied by the Tianzhou automated cargo spacecraft, first launched by rocket in April 2017. The Tianzhou-6 improved version weighs 14 tonnes and has a payload of 7.4 tonnes.

Like other countries including the US, China already has a full-size unmanned military space plane. Little is known about it, though it is thought that its main purpose is to deploy and retrieve objects such as small satellites.

This too is launched by a rocket booster and lands at military airfield. It made its first flight in September 2020 and has since carried out a mission lasting 276 days. It is currently on another mission that began last December.