WASHINGTON, June 7 (Reuters) – France is set to sign a U.S.-led multilateral agreement to govern countries’ behavior in space and on the moon, according to two people familiar with the plans.

France’s signing of the pact, called the Artemis Accords, will mark one of the most significant endorsements yet of Washington’s efforts to shape international legal norms and standards for lunar surface exploration, the officials said. sources, who asked not to be identified.

A spokeswoman for the French space agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A NASA spokeswoman, who led the drafting of the Artemis Accords, did not return an email seeking comment.

French officials will sign the agreements Tuesday evening during a celebration at the French ambassador’s residence in Washington, DC, of ​​the 60th anniversary of the French space agency, one of the sources said.

The country will become the 20th to sign the pact since 2020, when it was conceived by the Trump administration as a diplomatic arm of NASA’s flagship space exploration program, Artemis. This program aims to return humans to the surface of the Moon by 2025 with the help of American allies and private companies.

The agreements, primarily based on broader principles from the landmark 1967 Outer Space Treaty, include a range of principles designed to promote the peaceful uses of space, ranging from the establishment of “safe areas” around future lunar bases to sharing scientific data with other countries.

The UK, Japan and Canada are other key countries that have already signed the agreements, with France set to become the seventh European state. The latest signatory last month was Colombia, one of the few signatories that sees the agreements as a boost to develop their own space capabilities.

China, which is not a signatory to the Artemis Accords, is planning its own lunar exploration program which NASA chief Bill Nelson and other US officials see as a rival to the Artemis program. Russia, a longtime partner of the US space agency on the International Space Station, plans to work with Beijing on its lunar program instead of the Artemis program.

Reporting by Joey Roulette in Washington; Editing by Alexandra Hudson

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