Seven Nations Sign Onto The Artemis Accords With The U.S. For Lunar Exploration - Part 1 of 2 Parts

Seven Nations Sign Onto The Artemis Accords With The U.S. For Lunar Exploration - Part 1 of 2 Parts

Part 1 of 2 Parts
       Seven countries have joined the United States to collaborate in NASA’s Artemis program to put astronauts on the moon as early as 2024. The nations who have joined Artemis include Australia, Britain, Canada, Japan, Italy, Luxembourg and the United Arab Emirates. The Artemis Accords commit the signing nations to adhere to a set of principles that range from ensuring the interoperability of space hardware to the protection of lunar heritage sites and space property rights.
     The signing was announced by NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine and representative of other signatory nations last week as part of the International Astronautical Congress (IAC). During the Congress, Bridenstine said that the Accords will serve as the “preamble of bilateral agreements between the United States and all of our international partners as we go sustainably to the moon with commercial and international partners.”
     Each signatory nation will be obligated to ensure that the commercial partners under their jurisdiction observe the requirements of the Artemis Accords. The signers of the Accords will be required to register the objects that they are launching into space. They must also provide public notification about the locations and nature of their operations. This is called “due regard.”
    If it happens that signatories do not adhere to the conditions laid out in the Accords and any follow-up agreements, they could be invited to withdraw from the Accords. Bridenstine said, “There’s a lot of pressure that can be brought to bear.” He did not give any details on the enforcement process. Bridenstine said that the Artemis Accords were a way to “operationalize” the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which governs international activities in space.
     He joked in a NASA webcast when the Accords were signed that “The Outer Space Treaty is over 50 years old, but it doesn’t look a day over 35. The Accords both reinforce and implement the obligations of the Outer Space Treaty. For the first time, we are establishing consequences for Outer Space Treaty compliance.”
    Because the Artemis Accords do not have the status associated with treaties, they do not have to be ratified by the U. S. Senate. Bridenstine said that NASA had been making use of bilateral agreements with individual nations in order to speed up the process of preparing for the first Artemis astronauts to land on the Moon in 2024. He said, “We have a mandate to go quickly, and at the same time bring on international and commercial partners. And that’s what we’re trying to do.”
     The agreements covering landing astronauts on the Moon are separate from the multilateral agreement that governs operations on the International Space Station (ISS). There is a similar multinational agreement that applies to the Gateway which is a NASA-led project to construct an outpost in lunar orbit.
      Megan Clark is head of the Australian Space Agency. She was at the Congress and said, “We’re so proud that our agency, just two years old, can stand shoulder to shoulder with NASA and our counterparts from across the globe.”
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