The French space agency has signed the Artemis agreements, which govern the principles applying to future activities on the Moon. Astronauts must be sent there around 2025.
Le Monde with AFP
France became, Tuesday, June 7, the twentieth country to associate itself with the program of future exploration of the Moon on the initiative of the United States. She notably joins Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Brazil.
The CEO of the National Center for Spatial Studies (CNES), the French Space Agency, Philippe Baptiste, signed in Washington, in the presence of the NASA administrator, Bill Nelson, the text of the said declaration ” Artemis agreements “. The American program of the same name aims to return astronauts to the moon around 2025, more than fifty years after the historical increase in the Apollo 11 mission, with the objective of establishing, in the long term, a lasting human presence.
It also provides for the construction of a station which will be assembled in lunar orbit from 2024, the Lunar Gateway, future springboard for more distant inhabited flights.
The Artemis agreements constitute a set of bilateral agreements with the United States, which rely on the international treaty governing the extra-Atmospheric space of 1967.
“At the same time for our scientific community and our industry, this new framework will face new challenges and continue to count among the great space powers”, welcomed Philippe Baptiste, quoted in a press release.
Russia and China are a separate band
The signatory countries adhere to a dozen principles applying to their future activities on the Moon, but also on Mars or asteroids: transparency of missions, interoperability of systems, assistance to personnel in the event of distress, sharing of data Scientists, preservation of historical sites…
A more controversial measure provides the possibility of delimiting “safety zones” to avoid “harmful interference” by a third party, in particular to protect the exploitation of resources, such as lunar water. And this, while the 1967 Treaty prohibits any “national appropriation” of these resources.
“According to our analysis, the artemis agreements are not in contradiction with the 1967 treaty,” said the France-Presse (AFP) agency, Pascale Ultzon-Guérard, deputy director of programs at the Directorate of strategy at CNES. The text makes it possible to “cement” France’s commitment to lunar exploration, she added. For example, the module of communication and supply of the Lunar Gateway must be designed in France by Thales Alenia Space.
The text, unveiled by the United States in 2020, was not signed neither by China nor by Russia, which plan to build their own lunar station together.