Nigeria and Rwanda on Tuesday signed their adherence to the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Artemis Accords, which set out a series of rules for lunar exploration.
The Nigerian and Rwandan governments became the first in Africa to join these agreements, which already have 23 members, the US State Department said in a statement.
The accession was signed by the Nigerian Minister of Communications, Isa Ali Ibrahim, and by the director of the Rwandan Space Agency, Francis Ngabo, during the Summit of the United States and Africa, which is hosted by Washington this week.
The Artemis Agreements were born in 2020 with the signature of the United States, Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom, to which other nations have been added.
These agreements, based on the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, establish standards of good practice and disclosure of scientific data on future exploration to the Moon.
In addition to these agreements, NASA leads the Artemis program that seeks to send the first woman and a man to the lunar surface in 2025.
US President Joe Biden will address the US-Africa Summit on Wednesday, which is attended by 49 African leaders, including Abdelfatah al-Sisi of Egypt and William Ruto of Kenya.