BEIJING: The China National Space Administration (CNSA) and its US counterpart NASA held working-level meetings and communications from January to March 2021 on exchanging data to ensure the flight safety of Mars spacecraft, the CNSA confirmed exclusively with the Global Times on Wednesday.
The CNSA made the statement in response to inquiries from the Global Times following reports that NASA recently conducted talks with CNSA in efforts to obtain information on the orbit of China’s Tianwen-1 Mars probe, in order to lower the risk of collision with a handful of other spacecraft currently in Martian orbit. Could such a rare but not unprecedented interaction between China and the US in the space field signal a prelude to ice-breaking? Chinese observers reached by the Global Times on Wednesday said they are cautiously optimistic about the potential common ground between the two space powerhouses, while admitting there are many obstacles to overcome before Beijing and Washington can meet halfway above Planet Earth.
NASA Acting Administrator Steve Jurczyk revealed the discussions with China during a question-and-answer session after a March 23 speech at a meeting of the Federal Aviation Administration’s Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee, US-based SpaceNews magazine reported on Tuesday. “Most recently, we had an exchange with them on them providing their orbital data, their ephemeris data, for their Tianwen-1 Mars orbiting mission, so we could do conjunction analysis around Mars with the orbiters,” the NASA chief was quoted as saying in the report. “To assure the safety of our respective missions, NASA is coordinating with the UAE, European Space Agency, Indian Space Research Organisation and the CNSA, all of which have spacecraft in orbit around Mars, to exchange information on our respective Mars missions to ensure the safety of our respective spacecraft,” NASA said in a brief statement it provided to the US magazine.
– The Daily Mail-Global Times News exchange item
