Greece recently announced its connection to the American space program Artemis, which involves the exploration and establishment of the first inhabited colony there.
On February 9, Foreign Minister Giorgis Gerapetritis signed the Artemis Accords, an international agreement between the governments of the countries participating in the Artemis space program to explore the Moon, Mars and asteroids for peaceful purposes. The first countries to join the agreement on October 13, 2020 were: USA, Australia, Great Britain, Italy, Canada, Luxembourg, UAE, Japan. Later the agreements were signed by Argentina, Colombia, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Spain, South Korea, New Zealand, Brazil, Poland, Mexico, Nigeria, Germany, India, Israel, Rwanda, Romania, Bahrain, Singapore, France, Saudi Arabia and Ecuador.
Artemis – as mentioned above, it is an American space company that aims to explore and settle the Moon and in the future fly to Mars. The program was established in 2017 and is led by NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) with the participation of three partner agencies: the European Space Agency (short for ESA), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (short for JAXA) and the Canadian Space Agency (short for CSA).
The program consists of several planned missions. The Artemis-1 mission began on November 16, 2022 and successfully completed on December 11, 2022. The goal was a test unmanned flight to the moon.
The Artemis-2 mission is scheduled for September 2025. Its goal will be a manned orbit of the moon and the mission time will be approximately 10 days.
A crewed lunar landing is planned for September 2026 as part of the Artemis-3 mission. The Artemis-10 mission (2034) envisions an extended human stay on the lunar surface.
Giorgis Gerapetritis emphasized that the signing of the agreement is very important for the future joint coexistence not only on Earth, but also in space.
It is good that countries unite and cooperate in one common sphere – space. Such cooperation can help create peaceful relations on Earth as well.
