NASA, China Space Agency To Share Data From Chinese Lunar Lander At Science Conference

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 19th January, 2019) The United States and China have agreed to share data from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) with scientists at an upcoming international conference after the NASA satellite passes over the Chinese lunar lander now sitting on the dark side of the moon, with the goal of studying the behavior of dust kicked up by exhaust when the Chinese spacecraft landed on January 3, NASA said in a press release.

"This past month, NASA held discussions with the China National Space Administration (CNSA) to explore the possibility of observing a signature of the landing plume of their lunar lander, Chang'e 4, using LRO's LAMP instrument," the release said on Friday. "Science gathered about how lunar dust is ejected upwards during a spacecraft's landing could inform future missions and how they arrive on the lunar surface."

Meetings between the US and Chinese space agencies yielded an agreement to publicly release findings at the 56th session of the Scientific and Technology Subcommittee meeting of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space meeting in Vienna, Austria, February 11-22, the release said.

A US law requires NASA to get advanced approval for any cooperative effort with Beijing on space exploration, according to published reports. But the release gave no indication whether the law would, or would not apply to the upcoming flyover.

However, the NASA release emphasized that any cooperation with China will be "transparent, reciprocal and mutually beneficial," according to congressional and Trump administration guidelines.

For a number of reasons, NASA was not able to phase the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter orbit to be at the optimal location during the January 3 Chinese landing on the so-called dark side of the moon, which never faces Earth. NASA said it believes detecting the dust plume during the January 31 flyover may still be possible.