WASHINGTON — Finland signed the Artemis Accords Jan. 21, the first country to do so this year amid questions about the future of the agreement in the new Trump administration.
NASA said in a statement that Finland signed the Accords, which outline best practices for safe and sustainable space exploration, during the Winter Satellite Workshop 2025 at Aalto University in Espoo, Finland. The country is the 53rd to sign the Accords and the first to do so in 2025.
“Today, Finland is joining a community of nations that want to share scientific data freely, operate safely and preserve the space environment for the Artemis Generation,” NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free said in the statement. “Forging strong partnerships between our nations and among the international community is critical for advancing our shared space exploration goals.”
Signing the Accords for Finland was Wille Rydman, the country’s minister of economic affairs. “Our aim is that the cooperation will open up opportunities for the Finnish space sector in the new era of space exploration and the Artemis Program,” he said in a statement by the ministry.
The ministry added that while it was signing the Accords, a non-binding agreement, it also affirmed that it continues to consider the United Nations the primary forum for the development of international space law and that it will comply with such laws in its space activities.
Finland’s signing of the Accords comes after 19 nations signed the agreement in 2024, the most in any single year. Officials with NASA and the U.S. State Department credited the surge to growing appreciation for the value of the Accords as a forum for discussing issues like space safety and sustainability.
The Artemis Accords started in the first Trump administration in 2020 with the United States and seven other countries signing. Despite the Accords starting with the earlier Trump administration, some in industry wonder if the new administration will continue to support the Accords at the same level, citing the new administration’s “America First” philosophy.
That includes a Jan. 20 executive order from President Trump to the new Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. “From this day forward, the foreign policy of the United States shall champion core American interests and always put America and American citizens first,” it stated, calling on the new secretary to put the State Department’s “policies, programs, personnel, and operations in line with an America First foreign policy.”
During a panel discussion in November at the Beyond Earth Symposium, veterans of past administrations were split about the role of international cooperation, including the Accords, in the Trump administration. “It is by its nature slow,” Lori Garver, former NASA deputy administrator in the Obama administration, said of diplomacy, “which is the opposite of what these folks have in mind.”
She was skeptical about the future of the Artemis Accords. “You don’t think that the administration is going to feel like they want to do things that are maybe a little different?”
Scott Pace, executive secretary of the National Space Council in the first Trump administration, thought international cooperation would continue to play a role. “When we do things in space cooperation, it’s not to make space people happy per se, although that’s nice,” he said. “It’s because we’re trying to set norms of behavior and rules, a predictable economic environment for investment and provide a more stable international security environment.”
“I think that international engagement is going to be an important part of the Trump administration because it’s part of larger national interests,” he concluded. “There can be different styles to it, different emphases on it, but it’s absolutely going to be central.”