What it means for Luxembourg From Ambassador Evans and LSA Board...

Artemis: What it means for Luxembourg By Ambassador Evans and LSA board advisor Dr. S. Pete Worden

Press release from: US Embassy in Luxembourg
Posted: Wednesday October 21st, 2020

This week NASA and six other space agencies, including the Luxembourg Space Agency, signed the Artemis Accords. These agreements set out the principles of responsible behavior by nations working with the United States’ Artemis program to land the first woman and next man on the moon by 2024. Two key aspects characterize this program. First and foremost, it not only recognizes the role of commercial and sustainable lunar exploration and resource development, but makes it a priority. Second, NASA’s Artemis program mandates that mankind’s return to the moon be made global.

This is at the core of how Luxembourg became a major player in this program: NASA is exploring Luxembourg’s new and successful model of space agency looking to promote commercial opportunities and partnerships.

Space exploration was once the exclusive province of a handful of state space agencies that relied solely on public funding to achieve national goals. That changes quickly. Retail companies are increasingly defining the goals for the use of space. The commercial sector will be an important component of Artemis and ensure a sustainable presence on the moon.

In the midst of the growth of the commercial space sector, Luxembourg has been closely following and, a few years ago, identifying this emerging industry as a potential and significant contribution to the national economy, making it the vanguard of the countries involved in this next chapter in space exploration.

In 2013, senior NASA officials, including one of the authors of this article, visited Luxembourg and met with government officials to discuss new and future space collaborations between NASA and Luxembourg. As a direct result of this discussion, Luxembourg launched its Space Resources Initiative (SRI) in 2016, which has now been incorporated into the new, commercially oriented Luxembourg Space Agency. In 2019, the US and Luxembourg signed a space agreement that opened the door to further US space investment in the Grand Duchy.

Luxembourg has raised several public-private funds to support new space businesses – not just in terms of space resources, but to support other exciting space projects, including robotics for the moon and elsewhere, weather and transport tracking, remote sensing for agriculture and small Satellite systems and components. Dozens of new companies and hundreds of new jobs in the space industry are now in Luxembourg. Luxembourg becomes Europe’s “Silicon Valley” for space.

Just a few weeks ago, a US space delegation, which also included the former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, visited the further cooperation between the US and Luxembourg. The delegation considered, among other things, possible joint missions to the moon, including rovers and robotic arms, all of which were designed and manufactured here in Luxembourg. These missions, funded by public-private trading partnerships and NASA, could be carried out over the next several years.

Resources from the moon – likely starting with exploring water to provide energy and fuel for a sustainable presence on the moon and traveling to Mars – could provide valuable economic support to people returning to the moon later in the decade. This opens doors to a whole new world of opportunity, scientific discovery, and exploration that is both valuable to humanity and economically viable – the establishment of a base camp from which humans can launch missions to explore Mars. In this case, you can be sure that Luxembourg will play an important and leading role precisely there.

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