Images of China's reusable Shenlong space plane are yet to be released to the public. This is an artist's rendition of what it may look like

Amateur observers worldwide have been diligently tracking the spacecraft since its launch. They have now revealed that the Chinese spacecraft allegedly released six unidentified objects into Earth's orbit. What for? Here's all you need to know

China's enigmatic reusable space plane, Shenlong aka the "Divine Dragon", has added another layer of mystery just four days into its third mission.

Amateur observers worldwide have been diligently tracking the spacecraft since its launch. They have now revealed that the Chinese spacecraft allegedly released six unidentified objects into Earth's orbit. What for? Here's all you need to know.

'Mysterious Wingmen'

As per amateur, spacecraft trackers that have been tracking these mystery objects — designated OBJECT A, B, C, D, E, and F — are emitting emissions.

Scott Tilley, an amateur astronomer known for his satellite tracking expertise, has been closely monitoring these objects.

On X, Tilley referred to the objects as "mysterious wingmen".

Speaking to Space.com, he said: "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."

"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."

"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," he said.

"It's taken days of observations, tracking pass after pass with dish antennas, to come up with this data."

As per Space.com, Tilley and fellow trackers are confident that the emissions originate from the objects or proximity.

They've based this observation on the objects' expected paths, the absence of other known objects during data collection, and the unique modulation that, as per Tilley, has "only been seen from previous Chinese space plane missions using [a frequency of] 2280MHz."

"In summary, this iteration of the Chinese space plane mission launched into a similar orbit as the last two, but operationally it is exhibiting different radio behaviour than before. The additional observations of the emissions from OBJECT D and E is new, but could also have been missed on earlier missions if they too were intermittent," said Tilley.

"Something we should watch for is close encounters between OBJECT A and Objects D and E. D and E are in fairly elliptical orbits, while A is in a near-circular orbit. In the next couple of days there will be close approaches between these objects at perigee," he added.

China's Mysterious Packages In Space

China's space plane, as per the report, exhibited similar behaviour in its prior missions — launched in September 2020 and August 2022, releasing unknown objects into orbit.

Earlier, speculation ranged from service modules to small satellites for monitoring the space plane.