NASA-China Mars Rover Controversy: Why Robot Designs Are Similar

Chinese scientists have alleged that NASA's new moon rover "copies" design elements from their Zhurong Mars rover.

"This is a copy of the Chinese design," a Beijing-based space scientist who has been closely monitoring the projects, told the South China Morning Post.

The allegation marks yet another point of contention between the U.S. and China in space, with a U.S. government report released in August, titled The 2022 State of the Space Industrial Base Report, stating that China wishes to "displace the U.S. as the dominant space power both militarily and economically by 2045."

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told German newspaper Bild in July that "we must be very concerned that China is landing on the moon and saying: 'It's ours now and you stay out.'" China responded by saying that the U.S. wants to turn space into a battlefield.

The China National Space Administration's Zhurong features an active suspension system that simulates the movement of an inchworm, increasing its mobility on Mars significantly by allowing the rover to pull its wheels free if they get stuck.

NASA's new rover in development for the Artemis moon missions, named the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER), uses a similar method to improve maneuverability. According to the NASA website, VIPER will be able to "inchworm—or move its wheels in a special, caterpillar-like coordinated way that helps the rover get itself unstuck." VIPER is due to go to the moon in 2024.

Despite the similarities between the rover's designs, the two are not obviously related, according to experts.

Andrew Coates, a physics professor at University College London, told Newsweek: "VIPER is designed for the moon and Zhurong for Mars—they look quite different visually, as they need to survive very different temperature conditions: cold nights with a duration of half a month for the moon, and cold nights with similar duration to Earth nights for Mars."

"The harsh conditions on both the moon and on Mars limit the technical solutions that will work at each, so there will naturally be some similarities in approach, as each mission learns from all those that went before. But the detailed design, payloads, and scientific objectives are different for each mission," Coates said.

Due to the challenges facing all extraplanetary rovers, there is a necessity for designs to converge on the most useful and efficient solution.

Osnat Katz, a space science historian at University College London and the London Science Museum, told Newsweek: "There are a limited number of workable rover designs. Space environments are unforgiving—if something on the rover breaks and can't be fixed remotely on Earth, it's not getting fixed at all."

Katz added: "The sources who said this want to assert China's prestige as a spacefaring nation."

The U.S. has previously accused China of attempting to steal Western technology. In a July press conference alongside the U.K.'s MI5 chief, FBI Director Christopher Wray said: "The Chinese government is set on stealing your technology—whatever it is that makes your industry tick—and using it to undercut your business and dominate your market. And they're set on using every tool at their disposal to do it."

According to Svetla Ben-Itzhak, a space and international relations professor at Air University with the West Space Seminar, Air War College, the U.S. government passed a law prohibiting cooperation between NASA and the Chinese space agency to prevent China from stealing ideas from the U.S.

"In 2011, the US Congress passed the Wolf Amendment that prohibits NASA from engaging in direct cooperation with China for various reasons, one of which is to guard against the possibility of China stealing, copying, and/or reproducing/reverse engineering space products and technologies that NASA and partners develop," she said. "Even so, China and NASA recently coordinated over a number of issues, including the orbits of Mars spacecraft and such."

Ben-Itzhak believes NASA has no need to steal ideas from anyone.

"Why should they? NASA has repeatedly shown that it can design, launch, land, and operate rovers and spacecraft in a variety of difficult environments, including on celestial bodies," she said.

At least for now, the rover design has not sparked too much conflict between the two space agencies.

"We don't mind colleagues in other countries using our ideas at all," the researcher with the Zhurong team told SCMP. "Competition can be healthy. But we should compete as teammates, not enemies."

Newsweek has contacted NASA and the China National Space Administration for comment.