Latvia will become 60th nation to sign Artemis Accords for peaceful space exploration

Sixty nations have now penned their commitment to the NASA-led Artemis Accords for peaceful space exploration.

Latvia will become the latest country to join the Artemis Accords, the country announced at the end of October. The European nation was the fourth commit during that month, doubling the number of countries that had previously signed the accords in 2025.

Also adding their name to the accords in October were the Philippines, Malaysia and Hungary. They were preceded by Senegal, Norway, Bangladesh and Finland, who signed earlier this year.

"Latvia’s accession to the Artemis Accords is a significant step towards our more active participation in the global space community," Latvian officials said in an Oct. 31 statement on a government-affiliated website. "We are proud to become part of a group of nations committed to exploring and using space responsibly and sustainably."

October also marks five years of the Artemis Accords, which NASA, the U.S. State Department and seven other founding nations established in 2020 as a set of international principles to designed to guide how countries explore the moon and deep space. They parallel concepts from the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which aimed to promote peaceful cooperation in space.

Despite their name, the accords aren't directly associated with NASA's current push to return astronauts to the moon with the Artemis program. The agency is gearing up for the launch of Artemis 2 as early as February 2026, which will be the first mission to fly astronauts to the moon since 1972.

Artemis 3, currently targeted for 2027 or 2028, will be the program's first mission to land astronauts on the lunar surface, and will be followed, NASA hopes, by a series of missions to establish a permanent human presence on the moon.

NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy announced the addition of Hungary to the accords via social media on Oct. 22 and did the same with the Philippines and Malaysia today (Nov. 3).

Latvia's announcement indicates that the country "plans" to join the accords, according to the English translation of the release, but its official inclusion may have been delayed with the U.S. government shutdown still underway. NASA officials have indicated that a formal signing ceremony will likely take place once the government reopens.