Commercial satellite imagery has revealed two hardened structures of an unfamiliar type at China's most important missile test and training complex, and their geometry does not match anything previously catalogued there. The structures, at the People's Liberation Army Rocket Force's 1st Test and Training District near Jilantai in Inner Mongolia, are covered by rectangular retractable roofs measuring roughly 20 meters by 6.5 meters (65.5 by 21 feet).

The find was published on July 6 by the China Aerospace Studies Institute (CASI), a research body within the U.S. Air Force's Air University, and examined in detail the following day by The War Zone. CASI is careful to note that the report's conclusions are those of its author, researcher Eli Tirk, and not official U.S. government positions. That caveat matters, because what follows is analysis of construction sites, not confirmed knowledge of what sits inside them.

The imagery record is nonetheless precise. Satellite photos from September and December 2022 show the structures under construction; CASI's timeline puts the start of work in late 2022. A frame from January 28, 2026 shows one structure complete, its roof closed. Additional imagery reviewed by The War Zone shows the roofs open by sliding sideways along three large rails.

Dimensions are where analysis begins. Tirk estimates the structures' depth at between 6.4 and 11.8 meters (21 to 38 feet) — far too shallow for an intercontinental ballistic missile, which typically requires a silo of 20 meters or more. His assessment: the structures could support missiles up to medium-range ballistic missile class, citing the roughly 10-meter DF-21 and 11-meter DF-17 as reference points, and could "easily accommodate" short-range ballistic missiles and cruise missiles.

That points away from China's nuclear deterrent and toward something else: hardened, fixed launch positions for conventional systems. The DF-17, notably, carries a hypersonic glide vehicle. In Tirk's assessment, the construction might reflect the following intent.

What the Structures Might Be — and Might Not Be

Alternative explanations remain open, and the sober reading is to hold several simultaneously. The structures could conceal assets other than launchers. They could serve a specialized test role that never leads to an operational capability — this is, after all, a test base. Tirk also raises a possible connection to China's ballistic missile defense development, though The War Zone notes this sits uneasily with the fact that Jilantai primarily serves the PLARF, while air and missile defense belongs largely to the PLA Air Force. Firing through an open roof from a vehicle driven inside — rather than from a true silo — is a further possibility the imagery cannot exclude.

A useful comparison lies some 560 kilometers (350 miles) to the east, at Sundian, where a considerably larger structure — about 22.5 meters (74 feet) long and 9 meters (29.5 feet) wide — slides open along two rails above a genuine tubular silo. The Jilantai structures are a different, smaller pattern. Whatever they are, they are not copies of what came before.

A Base That Rehearses China's Missile Future

Location gives the discovery its weight. Jilantai is not an operational missile garrison; it is where the PLARF tests equipment and trains crews before capabilities spread across the force. Since the late 2010s the base has hosted trial versions of the silos later replicated at scale in China's new ICBM fields — approximately 120 silos at Yumen and about 110 at Hami, spaced roughly 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) apart in near-perfect grids, according to Federation of American Scientists analysis. What appears at Jilantai first has a habit of appearing elsewhere afterward.

That is the analytical core of the CASI report: if these hardened quick-launch structures prove out at the test base, China could deploy the pattern more widely — a conventional, pre-surveyed, salvo-capable strike infrastructure aimed at complicating U.S. and allied planning in a Taiwan scenario. Fixed launchers trade survivability for readiness; hardening and retractable roofs are an attempt to buy some of that survivability back.

The trend extends beyond one desert base. Hardened aircraft shelters, buried command posts, and now roofed launch positions reflect a broader Chinese investment in fortified infrastructure — a hedge against the precision-strike capabilities that would be arrayed against it in any conflict.

A closer look at the strange repeating pattern of China's Hami silo field — the scale the Jilantai prototypes grew into.

What is confirmed today is modest and should be stated plainly: two structures, specific dimensions, a construction timeline, and a location inside the PLARF's principal test district. What they hold is assessment, not fact. But at a base whose recent history includes the prototypes of the largest silo construction program since the Cold War, new and unexplained hardened launch infrastructure has earned careful watching.

Sources: The War Zone, China Aerospace Studies Institute, Federation of American Scientists, The Washington Times