Sixty nations have now penned their dedication to the NASA-led Artemis Accords for peaceable area exploration.
Latvia will turn into the most recent nation to affix the Artemis Accords, the nation introduced on the finish of October. The European nation was the fourth commit throughout that month, doubling the variety of international locations that had beforehand signed the accords in 2025.
“Latvia’s accession to the Artemis Accords is a big step in the direction of our extra energetic participation within the international area neighborhood,” Latvian officers mentioned in an Oct. 31 assertion on a government-affiliated web site. “We’re proud to turn into a part of a bunch of countries dedicated to exploring and utilizing area responsibly and sustainably.”
October additionally marks 5 years of the Artemis Accords, which NASA, the U.S. State Division and 7 different founding nations established in 2020 as a set of worldwide ideas to designed to information how international locations discover the moon and deep area. They parallel ideas from the 1967 Outer Area Treaty, which aimed to advertise peaceable cooperation in area.
Regardless of their title, the accords aren’t straight related to NASA’s present push to return astronauts to the moon with the Artemis program. The company is gearing up for the launch of Artemis 2 as early as February 2026, which would be the first mission to fly astronauts to the moon since 1972.
Artemis 3, presently focused for 2027 or 2028, would be the program’s first mission to land astronauts on the lunar floor, and can be adopted, NASA hopes, by a sequence of missions to ascertain a everlasting human presence on the moon.
Constructing on the sturdy relationship between President Trump and Prime Minister Orbán, I’m proud to develop America’s area partnership with Hungary. 🇺🇸 🇭🇺Their resolution to affix the Artemis Accords affirms a shared dedication to peaceable, clear exploration—at a time when… pic.twitter.com/G9VmB2cxUGOctober 22, 2025
NASA Appearing Administrator Sean Duffy introduced the addition of Hungary to the accords through social media on Oct. 22 and did the identical with the Philippines and Malaysia in the present day (Nov. 3).
Latvia’s announcement signifies that the nation “plans” to affix the accords, based on the English translation of the discharge, however its official inclusion could have been delayed with the U.S. authorities shutdown nonetheless underway. NASA officers have indicated {that a} formal signing ceremony will seemingly happen as soon as the federal government reopens.
