France will join NASA’s mission to explore the moon

Issued on: 06.08.2022 – 04:25

France will sign a US-led multilateral agreement aimed at managing the behavior of countries in space and the moon, according to two people familiar with the plans.

The signing of the pact by France, called the Artemis Agreement, will mark one of the most significant endorsements of Washington’s efforts so far to shape international legal norms and standards for lunar surface research, sources said, asking not to be identified.

A spokeswoman for the French space agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A NASA spokeswoman in charge of drafting the Artemis Agreement did not send an email asking for comment.

French officials will sign the agreements on Tuesday night during a ceremony at the residence of the French ambassador in Washington, DC, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the French space agency, one source said.

The country will become the 20th to sign the 2020 pact, when it was conceived by the Trump administration as a diplomatic unit of NASA’s flagship space program, Artemis. This program aims to bring people back to the surface of the moon by 2025 with the help of US allies and private companies.

The agreements, built mainly on broader principles in the landmark 1967 Space Treaty, include a set of principles designed to promote the peaceful uses of space, from the establishment of “safety zones” around future lunar bases to the sharing of scientific data with other countries.

The United Kingdom, Japan and Canada are other key countries that have previously signed the agreements, with France becoming the seventh European country. The last signatory last month was Colombia, one of a handful of signatories who see the agreements as an incentive to develop their own space capabilities.

China, which has not signed the Artemis Agreement, is planning its own lunar exploration program, which NASA chief Bill Nelson and other US officials see as rivals for the Artemis program. Russia, a longtime partner of the US space agency on the International Space Station, plans to work with Beijing on its lunar program instead of the Artemis program.

(Reuters)