By Staff Reporters 

China has revealed the model of its reusable Haoloong shuttle that will be used to ferry cargo to and from the country's space station.

The shuttle made its official debut on November 12, at the 15th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition in Zhuhai city, Guangdong province, where there was much interest about its capabilities and reasons why it is needed, as the Tianzhou cargo spacecraft is already in service.

The Haoloong space cargo shuttle is a reusable winged space cargo vehicle independently designed by Chengdu Aircraft Design & Research Institute under the Aviation Industry Corporation of China.

Launched by a commercial carrier rocket, Haoloong rendezvouses and docks with China's space station, completes cargo transfers, and then returns autonomously without external power, landing horizontally at a designated airport. In this process, the ability to shuttle between Earth and space and its reusability become key features of Haoloong.

The main reason it was designed for shuttling between Earth and space is that generally, astronauts generate a large amount of waste during their activities on the space station, and there is also a significant amount of high-value scientific research material that needs to be brought back to Earth. Currently, waste is mainly disposed of by the Tianzhou cargo spacecraft, but there is a lack of effective means to bring other scientific research materials back to Earth. For example, the recently returned Shenzhou-18 spacecraft brought back 34.6 kilograms of material, a quantity that was far from sufficient.

In addition, despite having an existing traditional cargo spacecraft, the Haoloong is required because after delivering goods to the space station, traditional cargo spacecraft burn up when returning through the Earth's atmosphere, making them capable of ascending but not descending in one piece. In contrast, Haoloong can not only deliver goods to the space station but also maintain its structural integrity when returning to Earth, enabling it to bring back high-value research materials from the space station and then be reused.

With the design complete, and comprehensive engineering development currently underway, Haoloong will in future complement the Tianzhou and Qingzhou cargo spacecraft, collectively building a flexible, efficient, diverse, and low-cost cargo transportation system for China's space station.