CLASSIFIED

SHIYAN-21 (SY-21)

Chinese Satellite Servicing Demonstrator (Grappled and Relocated a Dead Satellite) · CASC (China)

On January 22, 2022, a Chinese satellite vanished. Shijian-21 dropped off its usual geostationary position during daylight hours, when ground telescopes struggle to track anything — and reappeared alongside a dead BeiDou navigation satellite that had been drifting, derelict, since 2010. Shijian-21 matched its orbit, closed the distance, and physically docked with it. Then it fired its engines and towed the corpse of another nation's satellite 22,000 miles into a graveyard orbit — 1,900 miles beyond where any 'debris cleanup' mission has ever bothered to push anything. Six days later it undocked, let go, and quietly returned to its normal position. China called it space debris mitigation technology. The US Space Force called it something else: the first confirmed demonstration that a satellite can be grabbed, moved, and disposed of against its will — a capability that works exactly the same whether the target is dead or very much alive.