4 May 2026 year at NASA headquarters by Peter Burke, Irish Minister for Enterprise, tourism and employment, signed the Artemis Agreements on behalf of his country. Ireland became the 66th nation, which joined the Agreement.
For reference: Agreements of Artemis, published in 2020 year, outline best practices for safe and sustainable space exploration, drawing on the Outer Space Treaty and other agreements. NASA is also increasingly looking to the Agreements as a tool to coordinate cooperation between countries on the Artemis lunar exploration program.
The signing ceremony for Ireland took place a few hours later, as Malta signed the Agreements at an event in the Maltese city of Kalkara. Minister of Education, young people, sport, of research and innovation of the country Clifton Grima signed in the presence of representatives of NASA and the US State Department. Together with Ireland, everyone is now 23 full members of the European Space Agency (THIS) joined the Agreement. Four associate members of the ESA, along with Canada, are also signatories, which has a long-standing cooperation agreement with ESA. The only country among 27 member states of the European Union, which has not yet signed the Artemis Agreement, is Croatia.
The April surge in the signing of the Artemis Agreements (20 April — Latvia, 23 April — Jordan and 29 April - Morocco) attributed to the success of the recent Artemis mission 2, as well as with the revised plans for the overall Artemis program, in particular, on the creation of a lunar base. Mike Gold, президент Redwire Space та колишній посадовець NASA, який допомагав розробляти Угоди, stated, що оскільки міжнародна спільнота бачить успіх програми в її розвитку, вона ставатиме дедалі популярнішою.
Source: https://spacenews.com