David Tshere (right), Botswana’s minister of communications and innovation, signs the Artemis Accords June 25 as NASA Deputy Administrator Matt Anderson looks on. Credit: SpaceNews/Jeff Foust
WASHINGTON — The African nation of Botswana is the latest country to sign the Artemis Accords outlining best practices for space exploration.
David Tshere, Botswana’s minister of communications and innovation, signed the Accords on behalf of the country during a ceremony at NASA Headquarters on June 25. Botswana is the 68th country to sign the Accords since they were rolled out in 2020 and the ninth to do so this year.
“Botswana, like many countries who have interest in space exploration, found it important to become a signatory to the Artemis Accords to promote safe, transparent and sustainable civil space exploration and to advance international cooperation under a shared framework for responsible activities in space,” he said at the event.
Botswana is a newcomer to spaceflight, having launched its first satellite, a cubesat called BOTSAT-1, on a SpaceX Transporter rideshare mission last year. The satellite, built by a university in the country with the assistance of Bulgarian smallsat developer EnduroSat, carried a hyperspectral imager from South African company Dragonfly Aerospace.
