This is CBS, I on the World. I'm John Bachelor. Gordon Chang joins me and we go to

Lower Earth Orbit immediately welcoming Brandon Weichert, author most recently of several books about Chinese technical

capabilities, most recently about its biohacking, but now we're talking about Chinese capabilities in

low-Earth orbit. Brandon a very good day to you. What is Shenlong and what is the

mystery? Good evening to you you good evening and hello Gordon

thanks again for having me well it seems like the issue is China has a space plane

that they are deploying into orbit and as this plane is

skidding about the orbit it is releasing secondary objects and so the question

is what precisely are those objects now I in my book

winning space I detail China's capabilities they're known as co-orbital

satellites these are small satellites that tailgate are more important systems in orbit and could physically, theoretically damage or destroy these systems rendering our people that rely on those satellites

deaf, dumb and blind and that is what I think you're seeing here is there at the very

least testing the system. Shenlong is a space plane. Is it exactly the same? A Xerox copy of the XB 37? Any differences?

It certainly appears, if you're just looking at the pictures of it it certainly appears to be a

clone of the X 37 or the X 37 B rather if your audience isn't familiar the X 37 B

has broken every record imaginable. It is basically a space

drone and my articles on the subject at the national interest. I call it an

unofficial space bomber and that's because it has capabilities that allow for it to

possibly be used in a weaponization capacity and China of course wants that capability

as well and they've cloned it.

Gordon, you have a question for Brandon.

Brandon, if it's a possibility to be a bomber,

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