Atlantic Declaration Deepens U.S.-UK Space Cooperation
On June 8, President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced the Atlantic Declaration for a Twenty-First Century U.S.-UK Economic Partnership, to include commercial space cooperation.
The declaration calls for a new economic security framework covering ever-closer cooperation on critical and emerging technologies and stronger protective toolkits. With regard to space, it states:
- Looking to the future and deepening our partnership across all sectors of space cooperation. We recognize recent bilateral innovation in commercial space launch and are committed to further strengthening bilateral commercial space cooperation, including in the field of deep space communications. We are committed to taking tangible steps to deepen our collaboration on space sustainability and our respective regulations. The United States welcomes the close partnership with the United Kingdom on heliophysics missions and the United Kingdom’s contribution to the NASA Helioswarm mission in particular. The United States welcomes potential participation by the United Kingdom in future commercial space station concepts. The United States and the United Kingdom are committed to studying opportunities for cooperation on space nuclear power and propulsion in accordance with their respective domestic laws and consistent with international obligations and commitments.