The United States and China aren’t the only powerful, wealthy nations in the world, and they’re certainly not the only nations active in space. For example, there are the Russians, which are…kind of distracted at the moment, so for our purposes there really isn’t much to talk about there.
It seems these days that everybody wants to get a piece of the Moon for themselves, and many nations have either developed their own independent spacecraft, or took up some rideshare options available on the heavy-lift vehicles from the United States and China.
In 2007 JAXA, the Japanese space agency, launched a successful orbiter mission right around the same time that the Chinese were gearing up Chang’e 1, followed in 2008 by the Indian Space Agency’s Chandrayaan-1 mission, which was mostly an orbiter but also technically landed on the moon because the mission had an impactor that crashed (on purpose) on the lunar surface.
In 2014 we had – wait for it – Luxembourg joining the party with the Manfred Memorial Moon Mission, named after the founder of the private company that led the mission who passed away in 2014. This mission rode along with Chang’e 5 on a Long March 3C rocket, and it successfully flew by the Moon before entering an orbit that would end up sending the spacecraft crashing into the lunar surface in 2022 (we think, it’s hard to check up on that kind of stuff). This mission was notable for two reasons: one, hello Luxembourg, and two, it was the first private lunar probe to successfully fly by the moon.
In 2019 the Israeli space agency tried to send a lander, Beresheet, to the moon, and while it technically did reach the lunar surface, it wasn’t in the way they had hoped. The spacecraft, named after the first book of the Bible, suffered a failure of one of its gyroscopes during decent. Without the gyroscope, the spacecraft couldn’t orient itself properly and crashed into the lunar surface. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter actually snapped a gruesome picture of the event.
In 2019 the Indians got another orbiter around the moon, but their attempt at a lander and rover didn’t quite make it, unfortunately.
More recently other countries have sent flybys, orbiters, and landers, including South Korea, some more from Japan, the European Space Agency, Russia, Mexico, Pakistan, and the United Arab Emirates, with the usual mix of successes and failures (which is to say, a lot of failures). For example, in 2022 the Hakuto-R Mission, led by JAXA and including a rover developed by the United Arab Emirates, had a software bug that prevented it from accurately gauging its altitude from the lunar surface. Eventually its altitude reached 0, but not in a good way.
But still, no humans. It’s hard to overstate just how much more difficult crewed missions to the Moon are compared to robotic spacecraft. So far, only the United States and China have at least somewhat plausible plans for getting humans to the lunar surface in any somewhat plausible timeline. So what are these other nations and agencies left to do?
Pick a side, that’s what.
Both nations have opened up their lunar programs to any partners willing to sign on (and follow the rules). This can go anywhere from a paid rideshare situation (we’ll give you a fraction of our payload capacity in exchange for some cold hard cash) to deals to co-develop critical mission parts.
On the NASA side, the Artemis project includes the European Space Agency, JAXA, the German Aerospace Center, the Italian Space Agency, the Israel Space Agency, the Canadian Space Agency, and the space program of Dubai.
In addition to that, NASA is out there in the world trying to get as many people to sign onto the Artemis Accords, which is an update to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty that allows for countries to use the moon for more than just looking around (as in, mining it to make money) but still have everybody get along and not start any moon wars. So far, 43 countries have signed the Accords, including Mexico, Canada, most South American countries, a good chunk of Europe, India, and Australia. The Accords state that they are “PRINCIPLES FOR COOPERATION IN THE CIVIL EXPLORATION AND USE OF THE MOON, MARS, COMETS, AND ASTEROIDS FOR PEACEFUL PURPOSES” – note the exception of the outer planets, so if you want to have your space wars, that’s where they need to be.
One notable exception to the Artemis Accords? That’s right: China. And Russia. So two notable exceptions, who unsurprisingly aren’t so keen on a plan that essentially relies on trusting the United States. In 2021 those two countries started their own party – nope, not the communist party, a space party - called the International Lunar Research Station, which on the surface is about co-creating a long-term lunar base, but since that’s decades away it’s really more about creating a counterweight to the Artemis hegemony. And since then they’ve got many other nations to sign on to their plans as well, including Azerbaijan, Belarus, Egypt, Nicaragua, Serbia, Pakistan, South Africa, Thailand, Venezuela, Kazakhstan, and…Senegal. Thank you, Senegal, I’m not sure what you’re going to contribute, but we’re glad to have you on board.
The Artemis project is always going to be led by American astronauts, and I’m sure that if China makes it back to the moon first, they’re going to make sure it’s one of their citizens to take that first step. But as plans develop and partners make their bids to be more valuable, you never know who might get to ride along and plant a flag of their own.
