China | Don’t look up

China is unusually secretive about its space programme

What is it doing up there?

BEIJING, CHINA - OCTOBER 16: A staff member watches a monitor after the Shenzhou XIII spacecraft docked to the Tiangong space station at Beijing Aerospace Control Center on October 16, 2021 in Beijing, China. China launched the Shenzhou-13 spacecraft, carried on the Long March-2F carrier rocket, to Chinese Tiangong space station on Saturday morning. (Photo by Hou Yu/China News Service via Getty Images)
He’s not revealing muchImage: Getty Images
|BEIJING

Nine months after being secretly launched into orbit, an uncrewed Chinese spacecraft touched down at a spaceport in the Gobi desert on May 8th. Not much is known about the mission. A terse report from state media called it an “important breakthrough”.

This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline “Don’t look up”

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