China will build new test facilities. China has had rapid rise in hypersonics with the most successful hypersonic missile tests of any country.

In 2016, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation began advanced research on hybrid combined cycle engines that can takeoff from an airport's landing strip and fly straight into orbit. The hybrid space plane's combined cycle engines would use turbofan or turbojet engines to takeoff horizontally from a landing strip. Once airborne, the engine then shifts to ramjet propulsion and, as speed increases, adjusts into a scramjet engine with supersonic airflow. At the scramjet stage, the hybrid spaceplane would enter hypersonic flight in 'near space', the part of the atmosphere between 20km to 100km above sea level. Finally, the hybrid spaceplane would use its rocket motors to push out of near space and into orbit.

Zhang Yong, a CASTC engineer, claimed that China will master the spaceplane's technologies in the next four years, and a full-scale spaceplane would then enter service by 2030.