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The Chinese government now possesses something that no other human has ever come across – rocks and soil from the far side of the moon.
The successful return of the Chang’e-6 lunar mission with the historic tank on June 25 was a scientific coup that further cemented China’s place as one of the world’s greatest space powers, rivaled only by the United States.
And even as competition heats up in the global race to establish a permanent human presence on the Moon, China’s space agency is once again following the precedent set by NASA decades ago after the Apollo missions and sharing its lunar samples with scientists around the world. .
“China welcomes scientists from all countries to apply (to study the samples) and share the benefits,” Liu Yunfeng, director of the international cooperation office of the China National Space Administration (CNSA), said during a press conference. on Thursday in Beijing.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told CNN he is “pleased to hear that CNSA intends to share” the materials collected by the Chang’e-6 lunar probe last month. The samples, collected using a drill and a mechanical arm, include up to 2 kilograms of lunar dust and rocks from an ancient crater on the far side of the moon, which is never visible to Earth.
“Make it available to the international community as we will when we start bringing back additional samples, and as we did half a century ago with the samples brought back from the six Apollo moon landings,” Nelson said.
It’s a rare moment of consensus for two space agencies competing to land astronauts on the moon and build a base near the lunar south pole. But US access to the samples could be hindered by a 2011 law known as the Wolf Amendment, which prohibits NASA from using government funds for bilateral cooperation with China or its agencies without authorization from Congress or the Federal Bureau of Investigation , effectively barring the space agency from routinely working with its Chinese counterpart.
“The main cause of obstacles to China-US space cooperation lies in US domestic laws, such as the Wolf Amendment, which hinders cooperation between the two countries in space exploration,” said Bian Zhigang, vice chairman of the National Space Administration. China, during Thursday’s press conference. “If the US really wants to engage in normal space exchanges with China, I think it should take concrete steps to remove these obstacles.”
During the Cold War, NASA shared samples collected by Apollo astronauts from the near side of the moon with its rival in the first space race — the former Soviet Union — along with dozens of other countries, including China, according to a spokeswoman for NASA. But samples from the far side of the moon have taken decades longer to secure.
China is the only country to have soft-landed a robotic spacecraft on the far side of the Moon, a feat first accomplished in 2019 by the country’s Chang’e-4 mission. A year later, China became only the third nation in history to successfully return samples from the side of the Moon that faces Earth with the successful completion of the Chang’e-5 mission.
China opened those samples to international scientists for the first time last August, and Nelson has given NASA-funded researchers the green light to apply for access.
“We’re going through the process now with our scientists and lawyers to make sure that the guidelines and the handrails that the Chinese are insisting on … are not a violation of the law, the Wolf Amendment,” Nelson told CNN. “At this moment, I don’t see any violation.”
Any similar application to study Chang’e-6 samples must go through the same vetting process, Nelson said. The US space agency “will continue to determine whether NASA-funded scientists and organizations can access the samples in accordance with Congressional restrictions on NASA’s interactions with CNSA.”
China is now aiming to land astronauts on the moon “before 2030,” while the U.S. is shooting for “the latter part of 2026,” according to Nelson. Despite the recent success of China’s robotic lunar missions, Nelson remains confident that the US is on track with NASA’s Artemis program to beat Beijing in this second space race to land humans on the moon.
“Spaceflight is hard, but human spaceflight is especially hard,” Nelson said. “And proportions harder than a robotic landing.”
NASA currently has the lead in testing spacecraft capable of carrying humans to the Moon. The uncrewed Artemis I mission successfully sent the Orion spacecraft around the moon in 2022, paving the way for the Artemis II mission to send four astronauts to the same trajectory in September 2025. China has yet to fly a test spacecraft from man around the moon.
NASA has partnered with SpaceX to develop the lunar lander that will take astronauts from the Orion spacecraft to the surface of the Moon during the Artemis III mission. That vehicle, called Starship, successfully completed its fourth test flight in June, but remains numerous test flights and technology demonstrations away from being able to carry people.
China has the upper hand when it comes to robotic lunar exploration. of
The US government hasn’t landed a robotic spacecraft on the moon since 1968, but NASA is currently funding the development of lunar landers by private companies through its Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS, program.
Intuitive Machines’ IM-1 lander, also called Odysseus or “Odie,” became the first US-made spacecraft in more than five decades to soft-land on the moon when it reached the lunar surface in February. But another NASA-funded lunar lander called Peregrine, built by Astrobotic Technologies, failed just hours after liftoff on its maiden voyage in January due to a fuel leak.