On July 16, the United States and Saudi Arabia announced a new framework for space collaboration and civil aeronautics that shakes up the space race. The agreement marks a turning point for the US-Saudi Arabia bilateral relationship, gearing it more toward scientific cooperation and demonstrating the pivotal role that emerging space powers, particularly in the Middle East, are poised to play in the Second Space Age.

The deal signed by NASA and the Saudi Space Agency is officially titled the “Framework Agreement Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on Cooperation in Aeronautics and the Exploration and Use of Airspace and Outer Space for Peaceful Purposes.” This mouthful of a name belies the true significance of the agreement.

For the first time, Washington and Riyadh have set up a legal framework that goes beyond the commitments enshrined in the Artemis Accords, which Riyadh signed in July 2022. The new umbrella framework enables the US and Saudi Arabia to conclude specific agreements on a wider range of activities, including aeronautics, data sharing, earth sciences, and more. Simply put, the deal settles the harder legal questions up front and enables bureaucracies to move faster to reach agreement on policy substance and specific joint projects.

More importantly, the agreement shows that the kingdom is not content to sit on the sidelines while other emerging space powers like India and the United Arab Emirates make their own strides in outer space, including successful unmanned missions to the Moon and Mars, respectively. For NASA, the deal fits into the agency’s strategy of developing partnerships with emerging space powers in the long game of deep space exploration.

Looking to the stars

Saudi Arabia’s space ambitions come straight from the top. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) has made the development of a domestic space industry part of Vision 2030, the kingdom’s national blueprint for economic development and growth, and laid out a development vision for the broader region under Riyadh’s leadership. The kingdom’s latest achievements in outer space even received a full page spread in the Vision 2030’s “Story of Transformation” for the year 2023.

Saudi Arabia’s contemporary focus on outer space has its roots in the bureaucratic shakeup and consolidation that followed the crown prince’s ascension. In 2018, the Saudi Space Authority was relaunched as the “Saudi Space Commission” by royal decree and initially placed under the leadership of MBS’s half-brother Prince Sultan bin Salman. The choice was a clear signal of intent and future ambitions. Prince Sultan previously crewed the Space Shuttle Discovery in June 1985, as the first Arab or Muslim to leave the Earth’s orbit.

Today, three main bodies make up the kingdom’s space bureaucracy. The first is the Supreme Space Council, which reports directly to the crown prince and is responsible for developing overall space policy and strategy. The second is the Saudi Space Agency, replacing the Saudi Space Commission in 2023 and now headed by CEO Mohammed bin Saud al-Tamimi, which is responsible for executing policy, including astronaut training, scientific research, and international partnerships. The third is the Communications, Space, and Technology Commission — renamed in 2022 to include “Space” in the title — which is responsible for promulgating regulations and supervising the space sector.

The fruits of the kingdom’s labors were reaped last year when two Saudi astronauts landed safely on the International Space Station, including Rayyanah Barnawi, who made history as the first female Arab astronaut. The crown prince personally met with the astronauts before their mission, calling space a “main pillar” of the kingdom’s strategy for global competitiveness. During a special meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in April 2024, Saudi Arabia announced it would open a Center for Space Futures as part of the WEF’s Fourth Industrial Revolution program.

Saudi Arabia’s interest in outer space is not a vanity project or science fiction. Rather, it fits in with the kingdom’s Vision 2030 agenda for developing its domestic technological and economic capacity. The global space economy is projected to be worth $1.8 trillion by the mid-2030s. Riyadh wants to ensure it reaps the technological and commercial benefits of that economy. Already, the Saudi Communications, Space, and Technology Commission reported late last year that the kingdom’s market share of the space economy reached $400 million in 2022. The Commission projected the Saudi space market will grow by 87 percent “in coming years” — and identified potential areas of growth to include small payload manufacturing and secure satellite communications.

The Saudi Space Agency says the bilateral agreement will enhance “joint investment in various commercial activities” and “joint work between the two parties, which include space and earth sciences, aeronautics, space missions, education, and many other areas of mutual interest.” Riyadh intends to capitalize on the agreement to leapfrog ahead of other emerging space powers, through partnership with the US when it makes sense to do so.

“We choose to go to the Moon”

For the US, the Saudi bilateral agreement is part of NASA’s broader strategy to develop partnerships with emerging space powers, as it also seeks to beat China back to the lunar surface. Recent scientific studies estimate that the south pole of the Moon potentially holds trillions of gallons of water — essential both for long-term habitation and to create the hydrogen fuel necessary for deep space exploration. That is why not only the US and China, but Russia and India too, are actively sending probes to the lunar surface.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson makes no qualms about publicly asserting the US is in a space race with China. He has even warned of a “Spratly Islands” scenario, referencing China’s maritime claims in the South China Sea to waters surrounding islands where the People’s Liberation Army Navy has established military bases. Already, China has signed MoUs with about a dozen countries to partner with the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), a joint project with Russian space agency Roscosmos to establish a space station in cis-lunar orbit and a physical presence on the lunar surface in the 2030s.

But unlike other parts of the US government, NASA’s international strategy is not to force a binary choice between Washington and Beijing — a choice most countries would resist as contrary to the vision of peaceful international cooperation in outer space. The principles underpinning the peaceful use of outer space are outlined in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, a legally binding treaty which all major spacefaring powers — including the US, China, and Russia — have ratified. The Treaty’s first article asserts that “exploration and use of outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries … and shall be the province of all mankind.”

By offering partnership on emerging space powers’ own terms, NASA is betting that these new players will see the benefits of partnering with the US and develop along technological paths that favor its interests. This strategy has so far yielded significant results. In January, the UAE — which has developed its own robust space program and placed an astronaut, Sultan al-Neyadi, on the International Space Station — announced that the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre in Dubai would provide the airlock for Gateway, the lunar space station that is the lynchpin of NASA’s plans to return to the Moon and eventually reach Mars.

Recommendations

US policymakers should view the new bilateral agreement as part of Riyadh’s domestic industrial strategy and embrace the opportunity to shape its direction. The next step would be to pursue follow-on agreements that develop Saudi’s space program in areas that NASA has identified are critical for the Artemis program, such as Moon-to-Earth communications or lunar surface cargo. Policymakers should also keep an eye out for Saudi Arabia to unveil its National Space Strategy later this year for further indications of the kingdom’s roadmap to the stars.

When it comes to broader international engagement in outer space, US policymakers should understand that trying to force countries to pick sides is not likely to be productive. Other countries are willing to partner with the US because it serves their interest to do so. And in the long run, these partnerships also advance American interests.

Despite misleading attempts by Chinese and Russian propaganda to depict cooperative frameworks like the Artemis Accords as proof of some nefarious desire to establish “American space hegemony,” more countries are signing up to partner with the US for peaceful, transparent, and safe exploration of outer space than ever before. Bilateral agreements like the US-Saudi framework or the UAE Gateway deal fit into that peaceful cooperative model, even as the US pursues a competitive posture with China in returning to the lunar surface.

By playing the long game, the US can ensure that it has friends among the future spacefaring powers with the resources, ambition, and will to reach for the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

 

Andrew Hanna is a Non-Resident Scholar with the Strategic Technologies and Cyber Security Program at the Middle East Institute.

Photo by the Saudi Space Agency