China collects Moon samples, may not share with NASA due to Wolf Amendment
The country returned about 2kg of rocks from the Moon's surface.
ERIC BERGER - 12/17/2020, 9:53 AM
Workers at the landing site of the return capsule of China's Chang'e 5 probe in Siziwang Banner, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, on Dec. 17, 2020.
China's increasingly ambitious space program completed a 23-day mission on Wednesday that culminated in the return of about 2kg of rocks from the Moon. During the final phase of the mission, a singed spacecraft carrying the lunar cargo landed in Mongolia and was recovered by Chinese teams.
This Chang'e 5 mission represents a significant success for China and its space program, becoming only the third nation—after the United States with its crewed Apollo program and the Soviet Union with a robotic program in the 1970s—to return samples from the Moon.
During a post-landing news conference, Chinese officials said they would emulate the United States and Soviet Union in sharing the samples with international partners, including the United Nations. However, sharing material with the United States seems unlikely due to the Wolf Amendment, a law passed by Congress in 2011 that prohibits direct cooperation with China.
"The Chinese government is ready to share samples, including data, with all like-minded institutions from other countries," said Wu Yanhua, vice administrator of the China National Space Administration. However, he then called the Wolf Amendment adopted by Congress "unfortunate" and indicated direct cooperation with NASA would probably not occur.
More:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/12/china-completes-lunar-sampling-mission-eyes-next-steps-on-the-moon
