President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida met in Tokyo on 23rd May, 2022 where they announced to collaborate for human and robotic lunar missions. They committed to include a Japanese astronaut abroad the lunar Gateway outpost and share a desire to see a future Japanese astronaut land on the Moon as part of NASA’s Artemis program. This collaboration is a result as alliance between Japan and United States has grown stronger, deeper and more capable.
The United States and Japan are working to formalize the Japanese astronaut’s inclusion on Gateway through an Implementing Arrangement later this year. “ This shared ambition to see Japanese and American astronaut walk on the Moon together reflects our nation’s shared values to explore space responsibly and transparently for the benefit of humanity here on Earth,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. This is a historic announcement. President Biden is once again showing nations throughout the world that America will not go alone with but with like- minded partners. Also he shares intention to explore the cosmos with countries that promote science, economics as a common set of shared values.
In additions the President confirmed United States’ intention to provide Japan with a sample from asteroid Bennu in 2023, collected by NASA’s OSIRIS- Rex mission. Japan provided United States with an asteroid sample collected by Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Hayabusa2 asteroid sample-return mission in 2021. With this collaboration scientists aim to make a extra step in space exploration.