The U.S.-led framework for Moon exploration has grown from 8 signatories to 62 in five years, as a competing China-Russia lunar bloc takes shape
April 20th, 2026: Latvia signs as 62nd nationNew here? Follow stories to track developments over time. Create a free account to get updates when stories you care about change.
Eight nations signed the Artemis Accords on October 13, 2020, establishing voluntary principles for how countries should behave on the Moon. Five and a half years later, Latvia became the 62nd signatory at a ceremony at NASA Headquarters on April 20, 2026, widening a coalition that now spans every inhabited continent.
The Accords matter because whoever sets the rules for lunar activity — safety zones around operations, extraction of water ice and minerals, data sharing — shapes the economics and politics of a new frontier.
China and Russia have refused to sign, building their own competing International Lunar Research Station framework with a separate group of partners. This splits the world into two emerging blocs with potentially incompatible legal standards for the Moon.
Why it matters
Two rival rule sets for the Moon are forming — which one prevails will determine who mines lunar resources and on what terms.
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Colombian Vice President Marta Lucía Ramírez Artemis Accords Signing (NHQ202205100023)
Colombian Vice President Marta Lucía Ramírez Artemis Accords Signing (NHQ202205100022)
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Fictional AI pastiche — not real quote.
"Sixty-two nations have agreed on how to share the Moon, which is sixty-two more than have ever agreed on anything down here — though I notice the ones who refused to sign are the same ones who've never much cared for sharing anything except blame."
Fictional AI pastiche — not real quote.
"Sixty-two nations have agreed on how to share the Moon, which is to say that sixty-two nations have agreed, and two have not — and it is the two who have not that will determine everything."
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The U.S. space agency co-drafted the Artemis Accords with the State Department in 2020 and hosts each signing ceremony, making it the institutional anchor of the lunar governance coalition.
The UN body that has traditionally governed international space law; critics argue the Artemis Accords sidestep it by establishing norms bilaterally rather than through multilateral negotiation.
November 2015 April 2026
Latvia's Minister for Education and Science Dace Melbārde signed the Artemis Accords at NASA Headquarters, with NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman and Under Secretary of State Jacob Helberg hosting the ceremony.
NASA announced that Artemis III, planned for 2027, would test lunar landers in Earth orbit rather than land on the Moon. The first crewed landing was pushed to Artemis IV in late 2028.
Oman joined the Artemis Accords, bringing the total to 61 signatories.
NASA marked the Accords' fifth anniversary by welcoming three new signatories, with seven countries signing in 2025.
NASA, the Australian Space Agency, and the UAE Space Agency co-chaired a gathering of dozens of signatory nations to deepen dialogue on sustainable space operations.
Panama and Austria became the 49th and 50th signatories. Seventeen countries signed in 2024 alone, the fastest single-year expansion of the Accords.
India joined the Accords during a high-profile state visit to Washington, a geopolitically significant move given India's independent space capabilities and historically non-aligned posture.
Rwanda and Nigeria signed the Artemis Accords, extending the coalition to the African continent for the first time.
France became the first major European Space Agency contributor to sign the Accords, signaling that European caution about the U.S.-led framework was easing.
China and Russia jointly unveiled the International Lunar Research Station plan, establishing a competing governance framework for lunar activity with its own set of international partners.
South Korea joined the Accords, moving the coalition into double digits and bringing aboard a major technology economy.
NASA and the U.S. State Department unveiled the Artemis Accords, signed by Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
President Obama signed the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, asserting that U.S. citizens have the right to own and sell resources extracted from asteroids and the Moon — a legal foundation the Accords would later extend internationally.
3 moments from history that rhyme with this story — and how they unfolded.
Twelve nations with competing territorial claims in Antarctica — including Cold War adversaries the United States and the Soviet Union — signed a treaty freezing all claims and dedicating the continent exclusively to peaceful scientific research. The agreement emerged from the cooperative spirit of the 1957-58 International Geophysical Year.
Military activity, nuclear testing, and mineral extraction were banned. Existing territorial claims were frozen but not renounced, a diplomatic compromise that made agreement possible.
The treaty system expanded to 58 parties and spawned additional protocols, including a 1991 mining ban. It became a model for governing shared spaces — though critics note it was negotiated among relatively few stakeholders.
The Artemis Accords face the same core challenge: setting rules for a shared frontier before commercial exploitation begins. But unlike the Antarctic Treaty, the Accords are non-binding and exclude major rivals China and Russia, raising questions about whether a framework without universal buy-in can hold.
After nine years of negotiation, 160 nations signed a comprehensive treaty governing ocean resources, navigation rights, and seabed mining. The treaty declared deep seabed minerals the 'common heritage of mankind' — a principle the United States rejected, refusing to ratify.
The treaty entered into force in 1994. The U.S. still has not ratified it, though it observes most provisions as customary international law.
The convention established the International Seabed Authority to regulate deep-sea mining. The U.S. non-ratification created a persistent governance gap for the world's largest naval power.
The Law of the Sea shows what happens when a major power rejects the 'common heritage' framework — which is precisely the principle China invokes against the Accords' resource extraction provisions. The U.S. is effectively trying to establish space resource norms bilaterally rather than through the multilateral approach it refused to join for oceans.
The United States, Russia, Japan, Canada, and the European Space Agency signed an intergovernmental agreement to build and operate the International Space Station, creating a multilateral governance framework for the most complex international engineering project in history. The agreement covered jurisdiction, intellectual property, and liability across 15 nations.
The ISS was assembled over a decade of cooperative missions despite deep geopolitical tensions, including the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea.
The station operated for over 25 years, proving that multilateral space governance could survive political crises. However, cooperation depended on mutual dependence — neither side could operate the station alone.
The ISS model shows that space cooperation can work even between rivals, but it required genuine interdependence. The Artemis Accords lack that structural glue — signatories gain diplomatic goodwill but face no operational consequences for leaving.