Claims China’s BeiDou satellite was refuelled in orbit could change space race
Por Ling Xin — South China Morning Post – News feed
Advertisement Science China Science Claims China’s BeiDou satellite was refuelled in orbit could change space race
Research papers suggest the historic operation occurred in February last year, a manoeuvre that could have military implications
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Ling Xin in Ohio Published: 6:00am, 27 Sep 2026 Chinese researchers appear to have revealed a previously unknown satellite-to-satellite refuelling operation in high Earth orbit, putting the country at the forefront of a technology that could reshape the space race.
In a paper undergoing peer review for the Journal of Deep Space Exploration, the team said China had “successfully provided room-temperature propellant refuelling for a high-orbit BeiDou satellite for the first time”.
The researchers from the state-funded Deep Space Exploration Laboratory gave no details about the operation.
They said it had given China valuable experience but emphasised the need to develop technologies for transferring extremely low-temperature propellants, which offered better performance for large spacecraft and deep-space missions.
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