Anchor: South Korea has signed a U.S.-led international accord to send astronauts back to the moon and further explore it. By doing so, the science ministry said South Korea has become the tenth country in the world to be a member of the program.
Park Jong-hong has the details.

Report: South Korea has signed the Artemis Accords, an international agreement initiated by the United States on lunar exploration.

The pact outlines the principles for governments taking part in the Artemis Program, an initiative to return humans to the moon by 2024, half a century after the Apollo Project - the last U.S. space program that sent people to the moon - ended in the early 1970s.

The signing was a follow-up on an agreement reached during the South Korea-U.S. summit held in Washington last week.

The Ministry of Science and ICT said Thursday that Minister Lim Hye-sook signed the pact making the country the tenth signatory following Japan, Britain and Italy, among others.

The Artemis Program also aims to ultimately expand and deepen space exploration.

Minister Lim said it is important to explore space in a transparent and responsible way through international cooperation and added that South Korea's signing is expected to help expand cooperation among the signatories in this regard.

South Korea, a relative latecomer to the global space race, has been working with the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA, to develop a lunar orbiter set to launch in August next year.
Park Jong-hong, KBS World Radio News.