WASHINGTON — The White House used a Dec. 20 meeting of the National Space Council to debate the importance of international cooperation but offered few latest initiatives along those lines.
The aim of the meeting, the third by the council in the course of the Biden administration and the primary since September 2022, was to spotlight what the White House described in a fact sheet as “extraordinary progress in broadening and deepening international space partnerships across a spread of areas.”
Those partnerships, Vice President Kamala Harris said in opening remarks, were vital to U.S. leadership in space. “In the approaching years, one in every of the first ways we’ll proceed to increase that leadership is by strengthening our international partnerships.”
Her speech, and the council session that followed, largely discussed ongoing efforts in international cooperation in space. The closest thing to a brand new development was a confirmation that astronauts from other countries will likely be included on future NASA Artemis lunar landing missions.
“Today, in recognition of the essential role that our allies and partners play within the Artemis program, I’m proud, then, to announce that alongside American astronauts, we intend to land a global astronaut on the surface of the moon by the top of the last decade,” she said.
Neither Harris nor others on the meeting, though, offered additional details. Each NASA and international partners had long expected that astronauts from other space agencies could be included on Artemis lunar landings sooner or later, with each the European Space Agency and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency particularly looking for to land its astronauts on the moon. No astronauts from any agency, including NASA, have been assigned to missions after Artemis 2, which can fly across the moon as soon as late 2024.
The meeting as an alternative largely discussed ongoing initiatives in international cooperation, akin to the Artemis Accords and U.S.-led efforts to ban destructive testing of direct-ascent antisatellite (ASAT) weapons. The meeting also highlighted a previously announced partnership between NASA and the Italian space agency ASI to fly a NASA Earth science instrument, the Multi-Angle Imager for Aerosols (MAIA), on an Italian satellite. The U.S. Agency for International Development will work with NASA to distribute data from MAIA to governments and organizations in Africa and South America.
Officials said on the meeting they might proceed those efforts. Secretary of State Antony Blinken cited “significant progress” on the ASAT testing ban, with 36 countries having joined america since Harris announced the testing moratorium in April 2022. “Next yr, we’ll proceed our diplomatic efforts to ascertain this as a global norm,” he said.
In the course of the meeting, Phil Gordon, national security adviser to the vp, instructed council members to perform several efforts related to international cooperation that included continued outreach on an ASAT testing ban, implementation of the Artemis Accords “in practice” and a plan to higher use space in support of international capability constructing. Gordon chaired the meeting within the absence of Harris, who left immediately after her opening remarks.
Harris and others noted that every one 33 countries who signed the Artemis Accords were in attendance on the council meeting. The one non-American to talk, though, was Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, who was assigned earlier this yr to Artemis 2.
“NASA could have chosen to do that alone, but they intentionally selected to incorporate Canada and a growing list of international partners,” he said of the Artemis program in remarks introducing Harris. “It will not be only sincerely appreciated but it surely is urgently needed on the planet today.”
U.S. competitiveness in space
While international cooperation was the central theme of the speech, the meeting also discussed American competitiveness in space. That included responding to what officials said were growing military threats from China and Russia.
“The threats that we’re monitoring include physical threats, electronic warfare and cyber threats to ground sites and space-based infrastructure,” said Avril Haines, director of national intelligence. “China and Russia particularly proceed to speculate heavily in, and are fielding, counterspace weapons.”
Gordon, in his role as chair of the meeting, directed Haines and her office to develop “minimum cybersecurity standards” for space systems. That might presumably construct upon Space Policy Directive 5, issued by the Trump administration in 2020 for cybersecurity of space systems.
One other task from Gordon was for the federal government to review space-related export controls to make sure each the competitiveness of U.S. industry while protecting national security interests. Don Graves, deputy secretary of commerce, said that review, including policies and the contents of control lists, was in progress.
The administration also used the meeting to announce a brand new policy framework for mission authorization, guiding how the Commerce Department, Transportation Department and other agencies will provide authorization and continuing supervision of business space activities not licensed today. That policy framework is a companion to a legislative proposal issued by the White House in November that will provide the needed statutory authority for that process.
“This proposal was thoughtfully developed by agency experts across the federal government in collaboration with the National Space Council,” said Polly Trottenberg, deputy secretary of transportation, on the council meeting. “These authorities will help make sure the U.S. stays a worldwide leader in aerospace safety and interoperability.”