Banxing or BX-1 is a small Chinese technology development satellite which was deployed from the Shenzhou 7

Shenzhou 7

- Backup crew :Of the back-up crew, only Chen Quan had not previously flown in space.- Mission highlights :The Long March 2F rocket launched the Shenzhou 7 into an initial elliptical orbit of 200 x 330 kilometres inclined at 42.4 degrees on 25 September 2008. About seven hours later the spacecraft...

 spacecraft at 11:27 GMT on 27 September 2008. Prior to deployment, the satellite was mounted on top of the Shenzhou 7 orbital module.

Purpose

Banxing was used to relay images of the Shenzhou 7 spacecraft. Weighing some 40 kilograms, and containing two cameras and communication equipment, it was maneuvered using an ammonia gas-based propulsion system. Following the re-entry of Shenzhou 7, Banxing remained in orbit as part of a formation-flying experiment with the discarded Shenzhou orbital module.

A few hours after Banxing was launched it and the Shenzhou 7 orbital module passed unusually close to the International Space Station

International Space Station

The International Space Station is a habitable, artificial satellite in low Earth orbit. The ISS follows the Salyut, Almaz, Cosmos, Skylab, and Mir space stations, as the 11th space station launched, not including the Genesis I and II prototypes...

. This provoked some speculation that the experiment was intended to test military anti-satellite interception technology.