Two Chinese satellites were able to dock at an altitude of 36,000 km above Earth. This information was reported by Swiss company s2a systems, which monitors near-Earth orbits.
According to s2a systems, the rendezvous took place on June 13–14. It involved the Shijian-21 and Shijian-25 satellites in geostationary orbit. In a moment, the vehicles got so close to each other that it was almost impossible to distinguish them separately. This suggests that Shijian-21 and Shijian-25 conducted at least a test rendezvous and possibly even a docking and undocking test. At this point, China has not released any official statements regarding the operation.
Both spacecraft were developed by the state-owned Shanghai Academy of Space Technology (SAST). Shijian-21 has been in operation since 2021 and has previously participated in an experiment to clean up space debris: it towed a non-functioning satellite from geostationary orbit to a higher “graveyard orbit.” Shijian-25 was launched in January 2025. At that time, it was stated that the spacecraft was intended to demonstrate technologies for orbital refueling and satellite servicing.
A short time-lapse of today's 11:46-hour coverage of SJ-21 and SJ-25, recorded from 08:47 to 20:33 UTC. pic.twitter.com/Z8SjGLNDuH
— s2a systems (@s2a_systems) June 13, 2025
Interestingly, American reconnaissance satellites USA 270 and USA 271 were also in the area of the supposed docking of the two Chinese spacecraft. Apparently, they were observing the operations taking place.
It is worth noting that this is not the first docking in geostationary orbit. In the early 2020s, Northrop Grumman’s MEV-1 and MEV-2 space tugs extended the operational life of several older satellites in the same way.
According to Space.com
