Why France’s signing of NASA’s lunar exploration pact is the most important signing yet

On Tuesday evening, France officially signed NASA’s Artemis Accords – the space agency’s set of guidelines and principles for how the United States and other countries should explore the Moon in the future. The addition of France, long seen as a big boon to the Artemis Accords, brings the total number of signatory countries to 20, bolstering the international agreement ahead of NASA’s planned return to the lunar surface this decade.

When the finalized Artemis Accords were presented under the Trump administration in October 2020, NASA announced that eight countries had signed the document, including the United States. But there were a few notable absences from this list. Two of the world’s biggest space superpowers – China and Russia – have not signed on, and Russia’s space chief has made it clear the country is not interested in partnering with NASA in its efforts lunar exploration. Two of Europe’s biggest space nations, France and Germany, were also not on board.

Now, after two years, France has finally come to the table, and the country is considered the most important signatory of the Accords to date. “It was essential to put France on the same wavelength as us for our lunar exploration and other plans, because it is the dominant actor in Europe with Germany,” said Gabriel Swiney, political adviser principal at NASA and one of the original authors. Agreements, tells The edge. France is the main contributor to the budget of the European Space Agency. The United States also has a long-standing partnership with France’s space agency, CNES, and the country plays a pivotal role in operating the launch site and rockets of Europe’s leading launch provider, Arianespace.

France was not completely convinced of the Accords at the start. “They’ve been open about the need for clarity on some of the issues with the Artemis Accords,” Swiney said. Now it appears the country’s issues with the deal have been resolved, giving the deals a major stamp of approval from a once skeptical nation.

Although the Artemis Accords are an international document, they are intrinsically linked to NASA’s lunar ambitions. The name Artemis comes from NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to land the first woman and first person of color on the lunar surface as soon as 2025. While the timing of that landing is subject to change, NASA saw the need to have a pre-emptive international agreement with other nations before humans walk on the Moon again, detailing the rules and standards to be applied to lunar exploration. “What we’re trying to do is establish standards of behavior that every nation can accept,” former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in 2020. NASA worked with the Department of U.S. state to craft the final rules.

The Artemis Accords build on the backbone of international space law, known as the Outer Space Treaty. Entering into force in 1967, the treaty creates a loose framework for how nations should explore space. The signatories agree to explore space peacefully, not to claim sovereignty over celestial objects like the Moon and Mars, and not to place weapons of mass destruction in space. But the Outer Space Treaty is vague by design, which has left many of its principles open to interpretation and debate over the past half-century.

The Artemis Accords go further, focusing on slightly more rigid standards for Moon exploration. For example, the agreement establishes areas on the Moon called “safe areas”. If a nation carries out works on a region of the lunar surface, it will inform the other signatories and the other countries will not interfere in this zone. The agreements also call for the preservation of heritage sites, such as the landing sites of the Apollo missions, and also protect the “extraction and use” of space resources. This way, countries can mine the Moon for materials and then use those materials in their lunar exploration efforts.

When the Artemis Accords were first introduced, they got their fair share of criticism. A major criticism revolved around the use of lunar resources, with some claiming the deals were a US land grab in space. The concept of using space resources is seen by some to conflict with the Outer Space Treaty’s instruction not to claim sovereignty over a celestial object. In fact, that was partly one of France’s early concerns, according to Swiney.

“France was one of the countries that made it clear that they thought space resources were something the international community really needed to spend time and think about,” he said. “So that it doesn’t become a Wild West gold rush situation, or that it just replicates some of the same inequalities that we see on Earth.”

NASA and government officials worked with the French space agency, trying to combat what they saw as a misperception that space assets were prohibited by the Outer Space Treaty. In the end, France got its act together, with NASA presenting the Artemis Accords as merely a starting point – not the end of the space resource discussion. Under the Accords, nations can extract resources, but “You have to do it legally and you have to keep talking about it and resolving some of these big issues.” Swiney said. “So I think they realized that was a good place to start, to then address the issues that are still very much on their minds.”

The next big European conquest would be Germany, the ESA’s second-largest contributor, and Swiney is optimistic about that prospect. “I think it just takes time for countries to become familiar with the Accords,” he says. “They’re hearing not just one US administration, but two US administrations talking about it…And as we move forward with [Artemis] missions, which are really centered around science and exploration, I think people are realizing that the Artemis Accords are really exactly what they claim to be, which is trying to create rules for the exploration and science.

Another standing criticism of the agreements revolved around the fact that NASA had not gone through the traditional treaty-making process through the United Nations. “I think that concern has really only been allayed by the signatories we’ve gotten,” Swiney says. The Artemis Accords include a diverse group of non-traditional space nations, such as Colombia and Bahrain. As more countries sign on, it’s possible that the Artemis Accords will serve as a new framework for international space agreements in the future – one that could be slightly faster and more nimble than the the often slow path of treaties.

“It’s the idea that all of these things are complementary, and that the Accords will then feed back into the UN process,” Swiney says. “But at the same time, we’re not going to sit and wait for the whole international community to provide advice when we’re about to go back to the moon and we need rules.

Swiney says he is looking for even more signatories in the coming months. Besides Germany, he notes that India would be a particularly welcome signatory given the country’s robust space program. And soon, the Artemis Accords will move from theoretical policy guidelines to implementation once flights to the Moon begin, which will ultimately be the hardest part of the process. But the fact that the document has won so many supporters so far has been a great victory.

“We knew these were topics that needed to be addressed before we started showing up on the Moon and beyond, especially persistently,” Swiney says. “But we just weren’t sure it was something we could achieve. And I think since 2020, that narrative has really changed.