Artemis Accords nations grapple with how to handle emergencies and 'harmful interference' on the moon

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Five years after the Artemis Accords were established, key rules for operating on the moon remain unresolved, including how to respond to emergencies and how to define "safety zones" around lunar activities.

As NASA gears up to launch its Artemis 2 mission — which will return astronauts to the vicinity of the moon for the first time in over half a century, presaging the later return of humans to the lunar surface — efforts are continuing on the ground to determine how to address the inherent dangers of lunar exploration.

At a press conference at the International Astronautical Congress in Sydney, Australia, last September, Artemis Accords members United Arab Emirates, Australia and the United States presented the latest outcomes from signatories' workshops on key issues, notably including the issue of emergencies and safety zones.

"In a lunar scenario, if there is an emergency, regardless of whether it is a [Artemis Accords] signatory or not, how do you behave in that scenario?" said Ahmad Belhoul Al Falasi, the United Arab Emirates minister of sports and chancellor of the higher colleges of technology. The outcomes of the discussions were not shared, though details are expected to follow as signatories continue their work.

Artemis Accords signatories sign up to key principles, one of which is interoperability. This means that partners with NASA's Artemis program should aim to develop and provide support for systems that can work in conjunction with existing infrastructure, with the goal of increasing the safety of space operations.

Cooperation between Artemis Accords signatories and non-participants during an emergency may be much more complicated politically, in terms of communications, and technology compatibility.

Asked if there had been approaches to other lunar actors such as China and Russia regarding joining the Artemis Accords, Amit Kshatriya, NASA's associate administrator, said that there had been none, citing constraints that NASA operates under regarding engaging with these parties.

Another area of focus and complexity is safety zones. Under the Artemis Accords, safety zones are the de facto mechanism for avoiding interference. These propose to establish buffer areas around lunar operations, such as landers, habitats or resource-extraction sites, to prevent harmful interference. But defining a safety zone and its area is challenging.

"What a safety zone is is not pretty well defined," Al Falasi said. "[They] could be small, could be big. We need to be very specific on that."

With both the U.S. and China looking to send crewed and robotic missions to the lunar south pole, which features notable key locations in terms of solar illumination and access to areas potentially harboring water ice, such questions will need to be answered to avoid issues and disagreements or worse.

The safety zone concept is stated to be part of avoiding "harmful interference," Al Falasi noted, and the difficulty in defining this. "There's some interference every day, but what is harmful interference?" Safety zones and defining harmful interference are the "foundation for ensuring non-interference," Al Falasi said.

Al Falasi said the meetings included exploring potential scenarios involving countries and private companies, both within and outside of the Artemis Accords framework. The specifics of the scenarios were shared, apart from one of the scenarios that simulated an emergency situation.

This lack of specificity comes after years of work on the Artemis Accords, which has more than 60 signatories. And a big question is whether these zones are temporary buffers, and if they would effectively confer something amounting to property rights on the moon.

Other parties outside of the Artemis Accords — for example China and Russia, which have joined up to establish the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) and coordinating bodies — might argue that these could become territorial claims in disguise, particularly as the 1967 Outer Space Treaty forbids appropriating territory on celestial bodies. However, as activities on the moon accelerate, Artemis Accords participants and non-signatories alike will need to find common ground.