Chang’e 5: China says it will share its lunar samples with global scientific community

‘Outer space resources are the common wealth of all mankind,’ Wu Yanhua, deputy director of the China National Space Administration, says

Some of the precious rocks will go on public display, he says

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Chang’e 5’s re-entry capsule returned to Earth in Inner Mongolia in the early hours of Thursday morning. Photo: AP

Published: 9:30pm, 17 Dec 2020Updated: 7:09am, 18 Dec 2020

China will share the 2kg (4.4lbs) of lunar samples collected by the Chang’e 5 mission with scientists around the world, a senior official from the national space agency said.

The lunar explorer successfully completed its 23-day journey on Thursday morning, when its re-entry capsule landed safely back on Earth complete with the first samples to have been collected from the moon since 1976.

While most of the materials will go to Chinese research institutions, some will be put on public display and others will be shared with the global scientific community, or given as gifts to countries and organisations like the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, Wu Yanhua, deputy director of the China National Space Administration (CNSA), told a press conference in Beijing.

“Outer space resources are the common wealth of all mankind,” he said. “The Chinese government is willing to share our lunar samples, including survey data, with organisations and scientists with the common goal of scientific analysis.”

After the success of the mission, Wu said the next phase of the Chang’e programme would involve four missions to test the technologies needed to establish a research station on the moon with China’s international partners.

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