This week, two more nations signed the Artemis Accords.
NASA held a ceremony at its headquarters in Washington, DC on Thursday (May 30) to welcome representatives from Slovakia and Peru. During the event, both countries signed the agency agreement Artemis Accordsa set of principles that aims to establish a framework for peaceful cooperation in space and in Moon.
The addition of these two nations brings the total number of signatory countries to 42. The Artemis Accords were launched and first signed in October 2020 by eight nations, including the United States.
Related: Artemis Accords: What are they and which countries are involved?
NASA chief Bill Nelson praised the addition of both countries in two separate agency statements.
“The United States and Slovakia share a deep understanding of the power of exploration. Through this new chapter in our nations' partnership, we will advance this global coalition to explore the cosmos openly, responsibly and peacefully.” Nelson said of Slovakia's participation. The country's Minister of Education, Research, Development and Youth, Tomáš Drucker, signed the Accords on behalf of Slovakia.
Similarly, the NASA administrator said in a separate statement. statement that the “great leap forward” for Peru and the United States is “the result of decades of work Peru has done to expand its reach into the cosmos.” Javier González-Olaechea, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Peru, signed the Agreements on behalf of the nation.
While the Artemis Accords seek to establish a set of rules for space exploration in general, they have a strong focus on the moon, hence their name with the NASA Accords. artemis program of manned lunar exploration missions.
Through the Artemis program, NASA and its international partners aim to establish a permanent and sustainable human presence on the Moon by the end of the decade. The campaign has launched one mission so far, Artemis 1who sent the plane without a crew Orion spacecraft around the moon and back at the end of 2022.
Developing the infrastructure necessary to sustain human presence on the Moon will be a much more ambitious task, and NASA will need to cooperate with international partners to make it all happen, the agency has stressed.
Some nations that signed the Accords are already well established in space, including France, Germany, India, Israel, Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom.
China is also considering its own permanent presence on the Moon and aims to develop the International Lunar Research Station in the 2030s together with its partners such as Russia, Ethiopia, Kenya and Azerbaijan.
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