Dozens of countries are working together to ensure that a race to the Moon does not descend into conflict as the US and China try to establish a human presence there.
Signatories to the Artemis Accords, a US-led international agreement that outlines responsible exploration, met in Sydney on Tuesday during the International Astronautical Congress, the world's largest gathering of its kind.
They discussed ways to prevent interference in missions, including the need for transparency around launch timelines, planned activities and landing sites, measures to manage orbital debris and sharing scientific data. The accords were signed in 2020 by eight founding members and now 56 countries have joined.
The UAE, which co-chaired the meeting, is a founding member. “Through our active participation in the Artemis Accords and by organising specialised workshops, we aim to reinforce the principles of transparency, sustainability and innovation in space activities,” said Dr Ahmad Al Falasi, UAE Minister of Sports and Chairman of the UAE Space Agency. “This reflects the UAE’s unwavering commitment to enhancing international co-operation in space exploration and promoting the peaceful use of space.”
Avoiding conflict on lunar surface
China is not a signatory to the accords, but co-ordination will become inevitable as more Moon missions take place, said Dr Dimitra Atri, principal investigator at NYU Abu Dhabi’s space exploration laboratory.
“As lunar traffic increases, basic co-ordination becomes unavoidable, just as it did in Earth orbit during the Cold War,” he said.
“History suggests spacefaring nations generally follow basic operational norms such as avoiding debris, frequency co-ordination and distress response, because it is in everyone’s self-interest. The real question is not if, but what mechanism they will use.”
Dr Atri said that competition between the US and China could open opportunities.
“Smaller nations gain access to lunar infrastructure, transportation and data they could not afford independently,” he said. “Multiple lunar bases actually increase options compared to a monopoly scenario.”
Who will be there first?
The US is preparing to send four astronauts around the Moon on the Artemis II mission in April 2026 as part of its goal of landing a crew on the surface this decade.
China had announced its goal to land astronauts by or around 2030, though their “plans are very secretive”, said Dr Gordon Osinski, Earth sciences professor at the Western University in Ontario, Canada.
“With this schedule and assuming no more delays, the US and its international partners should still be there first,” said Dr Osinski, who is also a geology team member for Nasa’s Artemis III, a Moon landing mission.
Private industry is helping Nasa to make its Artemis goals a reality, including Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin. They have contracts to build landers that will take astronauts to the lunar surface.
“For human exploration, private companies are involved, but they always have been and always will be,” said Dr Osinski. “Nasa contracts private companies to build the technologies needed to return humans to the Moon. For Artemis, all of the technology is new and must be tested again and again to make sure it is up to the task of transporting humans safely to the lunar surface.”
Sean Duffy, US Secretary of Transportation, was appointed by President Donald Trump to lead Nasa as interim administrator. He said since the Artemis Accords were signed five years ago, the “coalition is stronger than ever”.
“This is critical as we seek to beat China to the Moon, not just to leave footprints, but this time to stay,” Mr Duffy said in a statement released after the Artemis Accords meeting.
Plans are in place for the Artemis II and Artemis III missions. However, there is uncertainty on whether the Artemis programme is sustainable because each launch of the Super Launch System (SLS) rocket reportedly costs up to $4 billion.
Mr Musk had said that those launches on his Starship rocket could be at a fraction of a cost, though, the rockets are still in development.
“With the future of Nasa’s SLS and Orion uncertain due to rising costs and limited reusability, Starship is increasingly emerging as the de facto backbone of US launch infrastructure,” said Lin Kayser, co-founder of Dubai company Leap 71, which develops artificial intelligence models to design rocket engines.
China is also moving quickly towards its goal of landing astronauts on the Moon by 2030.
Its new Lanyue lunar lander has successfully carried out touchdown and lift-off trials, and the Mengzhou crew capsule cleared a critical launch-escape demonstration.
China's space programme used to be mostly closed off to foreign partners, but it has started opening up to co-operation in recent years, with partnerships formed with Russia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
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