Physical spacecraft and ISS designs are not open source
, as much of the technical documentation is restricted due to national security regulations like ITAR. However, NASA has made significant use of open-source principles for software, releasing many software projects under its own open-source license, and some older technical reports with detailed plans are publicly available
During the Obama administration, the
"Wolf Amendment" was enacted in 2011, which has since prohibited NASA from engaging in direct, bilateral collaboration with the Chinese government and China-affiliated organizations without explicit authorization from Congress and the FBI.
Chinese and American spacecraft docking systems are not currently compatible due to political restrictions, although China has indicated its future systems could be compatible with the International Docking System Standard (IDSS) used by the US and its partners. The Wolf Amendment, a US law passed in 2011, prohibits NASA from bilateral cooperation with China, making collaboration on docking impossible.
Some Chinese docking systems, like the one on the Tiangong-2 and the Shenzhou spacecraft, were based on the Russian APAS system, which is compatible with some older ISS systems.
However, this compatibility does not extend to modern US systems, and recent Chinese spacecraft are moving toward a system that could be compatible with IDSS, the modern standard used on the ISS, but political restrictions prevent this from being implemented.
