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After four days of launch, the secret robotic spacecraft Shenlong scattered six mysterious objects in orbit. Photo/Live Science
BEIJING – After four days of launch, China’s secret Shenlong robotic spacecraft scattered six mysterious objects in orbit. Some mysterious objects were even detected emitting signals.
Amateur spacecraft trackers around the world have been following the objects closely for days and have recorded emissions coming from some of them. The six mystery objects have been designated as OBJECTS A, B, C, D, E and F.
According to satellite tracker and amateur astronomer Scott Tilley, OBJECT A appears to be emitting signals similar to those released by Chinese spacecraft on two previous missions. OBJECTS D and E, meanwhile, appear to be emitting idle “placeholder” signals without any accompanying data.
“It is worth noting that unlike emissions at the start of Chinese spacecraft missions 1 and 2, these emissions were very intermittent and did not last long. “It took days to observe track after track with a parabolic antenna to produce this data,” said Tilley, quoted by SINDOnews from the Live Science page, Wednesday (20/12/2023).
Tilley and other satellite trackers have analyzed the signals and believe the emissions originate from the object or from close proximity to it. This conclusion is based on their observations along the path of previous Chinese spacecraft missions that used the 2,280MHz frequency.
“In short, the Chinese spacecraft mission launched into the same orbit as the last two missions. However, operationally it shows different radio behavior than before,” said Tilley.
Additional observations of emissions from OBJECTS D and E are new, but may have been missed on previous missions. Tilley said, the thing to watch out for is close encounters between OBJECT A and OBJECTS D and E.
OBJECTS D and E are in fairly elliptical orbits while A is in an almost circular orbit. In the next few days there will be a close approach between these objects at perigee. It is known that perigee is the point in a satellite’s elliptical orbit when it is closest to Earth.