WASHINGTON — The White House used a Dec. 20 meeting of the National Space Council to discuss the importance of international cooperation but offered few new initiatives along those lines.
The purpose of the meeting, the third by the council during the Biden administration and the first since September 2022, was to highlight what the White House described in a fact sheet as “extraordinary progress in broadening and deepening international space partnerships across a range of areas.”
Those partnerships, Vice President Kamala Harris said in opening remarks, were vital to U.S. leadership in space. “In the coming years, one of the primary ways we will continue to extend that leadership is by strengthening our international partnerships.”
Her speech, and the council session that followed, largely discussed ongoing efforts in international cooperation in space. The closest thing to a new development was a confirmation that astronauts from other countries will be included on future NASA Artemis lunar landing missions.
“Today, in recognition of the essential role that our allies and partners play in the Artemis program, I am proud, then, to announce that alongside American astronauts, we intend to land an international astronaut on the surface of the moon by the end of the decade,” she said.
Neither Harris nor others at the meeting, though, offered additional details. Both NASA and international partners had long expected that astronauts from other space agencies would be included on Artemis lunar landings at some point, with both the European Space Agency and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency in particular seeking to land its astronauts on the moon. No astronauts from any agency, including NASA, have been assigned to missions after Artemis 2, which will fly around the moon as soon as late 2024.
The meeting instead largely discussed ongoing initiatives in international cooperation, such as the Artemis Accords and U.S.-led efforts…
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