The State Space Agency of Ukraine has signed the Artemis Accords on cooperation on exploration of the moon, Mars, comets, and asteroids within the framework of NASA’s Artemis program.
The State Space Agency of Ukraine announced this in a statement, the CFTS portal reports.
According to the statement, the Artemis Accords outline a set of principles that will guide the signatory states in their participation in the Artemis program, namely:
- Peaceful purposes: the signatories affirm that cooperative activities under these Accords should be exclusively for peaceful purposes and in accordance with relevant international law;
- Transparency: the Signatories are committed to transparency in the broad dissemination of information regarding their national space policies and space exploration plans in accordance with their national rules and regulations;
- Interoperability: the signatories commit to use reasonable efforts to utilize current interoperability standards for space-based infrastructure, to establish such standards when current standards do not exist or are inadequate, and to follow such standards;
- Emergency assistance: the signatories commit to taking all reasonable efforts to render necessary assistance to personnel in outer space who are in distress, and acknowledge their obligations under the Rescue and Return Agreement;
- Registration of space objects: the Artemis Accords urges all partners to join the Registration Convention as soon as possible;
- Release of scientific data: Artemis Accords partners will release their scientific data publicly to ensure that the entire world can benefit from the Artemis program;
- Preservation of heritage: the signatories intend to preserve outer space heritage, which they consider to comprise historically significant human or robotic landing sites, artefacts, spacecraft, and other evidence of activity on celestial bodies in accordance with mutually developed standards and practices;
- Space resources: the signatories note that the utilization of space resources can benefit humankind by providing critical support for safe and sustainable operations and emphasize that the extraction and utilization of space resources, including any recovery from the surface or subsurface of the Moon, Mars, comets, or asteroids, should be executed in a manner that complies with the Outer Space Treaty and in support of safe and sustainable space activities;
- Deconfliction of Activities: the signatories acknowledge and reaffirm their commitment to the Outer Space Treaty, including those provisions relating to due regard and harmful interference.
According to the State Space Agency, Ukraine has all the scientific and technical capabilities and experience necessary to be a partner of NASA.
"This is important for Ukraine because we will be able to implement our own projects in partnership with the world's leading space agencies. For the first time, Ukrainian projects have become part of the global scenario for the exploration of the Moon, and it is logical that we want to further realize our potential within the framework of the Artemis program," the State Space Agency’s head Volodymyr Usov said.
The State Space Agency also hopes that the signing of the accords will facilitate conclusion of a framework agreement on cooperation in space exploration between the government of Ukraine and the United States.
As reported, eight countries signed the Artemis Accords on the principles of cooperation in the exploration and use of the Moon, Mars, comets, and asteroids for peaceful purposes during the 71st International Astronautical Congress on 13 October 2020. In addition to the United States, the accords were signed by Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom.
