Djibouti Set To Become 72nd Artemis Accords Signatory

NASA has announced that the Republic of Djibouti will formally join the Artemis Accords during a signing ceremony scheduled for 11 a.m. EDT on Monday, Sept. 14, at agency headquarters in Washington. The East African nation will become the 72nd country to sign the international framework, which sets shared principles for civil exploration of the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

According to the media advisory, NASA Deputy Administrator Matt Anderson will host Djibouti’s Ambassador to the United States, Mohamed Siad Douale, for the event. U.S. State Department Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Frank Garcia is also expected to participate. The agency has designated the ceremony as an in-person-only event, with journalists required to submit RSVPs to NASA’s headquarters media office no later than 8 a.m. on the day of the signing.

The Artemis Accords trace back to 2020, when the United States, through NASA and the State Department, joined seven other founding nations to establish the agreement during the first Trump administration. The accords emerged as a response to intensifying interest in lunar activity from both national space agencies and private companies, laying out what NASA describes as the first practical set of norms for safety, transparency, and coordination in space operations.

Since their creation, the accords have grown from a small founding group into a broad multinational coalition spanning nearly every inhabited continent. Signatories commit to principles such as registering space objects, releasing scientific data in a timely manner, providing emergency assistance to astronauts, and establishing “safety zones” around lunar operations to prevent harmful interference between missions. The framework does not carry the binding force of a formal treaty ratified by the United Nations, but it has increasingly functioned as the de facto rulebook for nations planning to participate in lunar exploration alongside the United States.

The expansion comes at a moment when competition and cooperation in space are both accelerating. NASA’s Artemis program aims to return American astronauts to the lunar surface and establish a sustained presence there, while other nations, including China and Russia, are pursuing their own lunar initiatives outside the Accords framework. Analysts who track space policy note that the growing list of signatory countries reflects Washington’s effort to build broad diplomatic consensus around rules for resource use, data sharing, and orbital debris mitigation before large-scale lunar activity becomes commonplace.

Djibouti’s addition also underscores a wider trend of African nations entering the space arena. Several countries on the continent have launched satellites or established national space agencies in recent years, driven by interests in earth observation, communications, and economic development. Space policy observers suggest that accession to frameworks like the Artemis Accords allows smaller or emerging spacefaring nations to gain a voice in shaping international norms without needing extensive space infrastructure of their own.

NASA officials have not detailed specific joint projects planned with Djibouti following the signing, and the advisory focused solely on the logistics of Monday’s ceremony. The agency noted that additional background on the accords, including the full list of signatory nations and their obligations, is available on NASA’s website.

This announcement was detailed in a NASA media advisory, as reported by NASA.