WASHINGTON — Two more countries have signed the U.S.-led Artemis Accords outlining best practices in space exploration, one among which did so with no fanfare.
At a Nov. 1 ceremony in Washington, the Netherlands signed the Artemis Accords. Harm van de Wetering, director of the Netherlands Space Office, signed the document on the event attended by NASA and National Space Council officials and the Dutch ambassador to the USA.
“NASA and the Netherlands have been strong partners in space from the early days of spaceflight. Pushing boundaries by technology brings latest responsibilities. By signing the Artemis Accords, we underline the values we share in space, and we acknowledge we’ve a standard responsibility,” van de Wetering said in a press release.
The Netherlands had been expected to sign the Accords. In an Oct. 2 statement, Micky Adriaansens, the federal government’s economic affairs and climate policy minister, said that the Netherlands would sign the Accords while investing 22.2 million euros ($23.6 million) to modernize the European Space Research and Technology Centre, a European Space Agency center within the country.
NASA announced the Artemis Accords in 2020 as a method to stipulate best practices in secure and responsible space exploration. The document largely builds upon the Outer Space Treaty and other international agreements on topics from registration of space objects and interoperability to utilization of space resources.
The signatories of the Accords met last month on the International Astronautical Congress to debate progress on two working groups. One is examining find out how to improve transparency in lunar exploration missions to avoid harmful interference, while the opposite is examining find out how to engage other nations to hitch to the Accords.
“As one among America’s oldest allies, NASA is proud to expand our partnership with the Netherlands and construct a future defined by limitless opportunity and discovery,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said within the statement.
“The Netherlands have a proud tradition of supporting norms of behavior and peaceful space policies. For instance, the Hague International Space Resources Governance Working Group, which was founded in 2016, tackled quite a few critical issues including safety zones, due regard and avoiding harmful interference,” Mike Gold, chief growth officer at Redwire and a former NASA official who helped led development of the Accords, told SpaceNews.
“The work within the Hague definitely helped influence the Artemis Accords and I’m excited for the Netherlands to proceed contributing to a peaceful and prosperous future in space as the most recent signatory to the Accords,” he added.
Within the announcement, the Netherlands was described because the 31st country to sign the Artemis Accords, a number that took many observers by surprise. The previous signing ceremony for the Accords, held Sept. 14, brought on Germany because the 29th country.
The NASA statement mentioned near the top that “Iceland became the thirtieth country to sign the Artemis Accords in October.” That signing was not previously announced by NASA, the U.S. State Department or Iceland’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Iceland’s flag was also omitted from an updated NASA graphic that included the Netherlands and 29 other nations.
It will not be unprecedented for a rustic to hitch the Accords with no fanfare. Ukraine, the primary country to sign the Accords after the initial group of eight countries in October 2020, did so by itself in November 2020, later informing the USA.