Middle Eastern signatories to the Artemis Accords,
indicated in blue

NASA late yesterday announced that the small Middle Eastern nation of Djibouti will become the 72nd nation to sign the Artemis Accords on September 14, 2026.

The map to the right shows the Middle Eastern countries that have signed the accords, which also indicates the Arab nations most interested in developing their space industries, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman. Djibouti’s decision to join at first appears to be a puzzle, as it has no significant high tech industries and has never done anything internally to indicate an interest in space. However, in 2023 it signed a deal with a Hong-Kong-based Chinese company to build a spaceport, only to have that deal canceled two months later. Its decision now to join this American alliance in space suggests that experience convinced it that the U.S. was likely a better partner, both in the development of space as well as here on Earth.

The full list of nations in this American space alliance is as follows:

Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Botswana, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Djibouti, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius, Mexico, Morocco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Thailand, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.