White House Reaffirms U.S.-Japanese Artemis Cooperation

During a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister ISHIBA Shigeru yesterday, President Trump reaffirmed U.S.-Japanese space cooperation on the Artemis program. Last year Japan committed to building a pressurized lunar rover and the United States agreed to send two Japanese astronauts to the lunar surface. The confirmation may alleviate some concerns that the Artemis program may be redirected to focus on Mars instead.  Japan also is participating in the Gateway lunar space station, but the joint statement mentioned only surface exploration.

Ishiba became Japan’s Prime Minister in October and is just the second foreign leader to visit Trump at the White House in his second term. Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu was first on Tuesday.

In a joint statement, the two leaders “affirmed their determination to pursue a new golden age for U.S.-Japan relations” with cooperation in many areas including security and defense, economic security, energy security, and to “realize a free and open Indo-Pacific.”

As part of defense and security, they said they will continue the “strong partnership in civil space and on aeronautics, science, and human exploration, including on the upcoming Crew-10 mission to the International Space Station that includes U.S. and Japanese astronauts as well as lunar surface exploration on future Artemis missions.”

U.S.-Japan space cooperation dates back to the late 1960s in launch vehicles, space and earth science, and human spaceflight. Japan joined what became the International Space Station program (originally Space Station Freedom) in the late 1980s and provided the Japanese Experiment Module, JEM, also called Kibo (Hope), one of the three science laboratories on the U.S. segment. Japan also built the HTV cargo vehicle that resupplied the ISS nine times between 2009 and 2020. An upgraded version, HTV-X, is in development. Japanese astronauts routinely fly to the ISS.

Last year, President Biden and then-Japanese Prime Minister KISHIDA Fumio signed an agreement where Japan will build a pressurized rover astronauts can use to traverse the lunar surface in an enclosed environment and a Japanese astronaut will be the first non-American to land on the lunar surface. A second Japanese astronaut will land on a later mission.

Comments over the past several months by Trump and his close confidant, Elon Musk, both of whom are advocates for sending people to Mars, have been raising concerns about whether they will continue the Artemis program with its current focus on getting U.S. astronauts back on the Moon for the first time since the Apollo program.

In his inaugural address on January 20, Trump fully endorsed human exploration of Mars with Musk standing close by. No mention was made of the Moon.

This White House statement may alleviate some of those concerns, but leaves many questions unanswered. Whether saying lunar “surface” exploration without noting Japan’s participation in the lunar-orbiting Gateway is intentional to signal its future is in doubt or just an unintentional omission is impossible to gauge. Japan, Canada, Europe and the United Arab Emirates are all contributing parts of Gateway, which is designed to serve as a transfer point for crews traveling between Earth and the Moon’s surface. Critics argue it’s unnecessary. Proponents insist it’s important not only as a safe haven, but to encourage international participation in long-term sustainable lunar exploration, the overall goal of the Artemis program.

Some changes to Artemis seem almost certain. Boeing told employees working on the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket yesterday that significant layoffs are a possibility very soon. Boeing is the prime contractor for SLS, which is being built to send astronauts to lunar orbit, but is years late and significantly over cost.