ESA Awards Contract for Development of Lunar Cargo Lander
Thales Alenia Space to Design and Deliver the Argonaut Spacecraft
ESA has awarded a contract valued at €862 million (≈$886 million) to Thales Alenia Space related to the design, the development and the delivery of the Lunar Descent Element (LDE) for ESA’s Argonaut Mission, including responsibility for mission design and integration.
“Thanks to this astonishing space vehicle, tons of cargo will be delivered to the Moon’s surface, including rovers, scientific missions and many more."
Hervé Derrey, Thales Alenia Space.
Planned to be launched from the 2030s, Argonaut will deliver cargo, infrastructure and scientific instruments to the Moon’s surface.
The first mission is envisioned to deal with delivery of dedicated navigation and telecommunication payloads as well as energy generation and storage system, as European enterprises to explore the Lunar southern area.
The Argonaut spacecraft consists of three main elements: the lunar descent element (LDE) for flying to the Moon and landing on the target, the cargo platform one, which is the interface between the lander and its payload, and finally, the element that the mission designers want to send to the Moon.
“Argonaut lunar lander means a lot to our company,” said Hervé Derrey, Thales Alenia Space CEO. “Thanks to this astonishing space vehicle, tons of cargo will be delivered to the Moon’s surface, including rovers, scientific missions and many more. This new element of the Artemis program will serve at facilitating long-duration manned lunar exploration missions and will be crucial to increase European autonomy in lunar exploration. The Moon will also serve as a stepping stone for crewed missions into deep space, with Mars being the next stage of the journey. I wanted to express my gratitude to ESA for awarding this new contract to our company. Today’s major achievement strengthens more than ever Thales Alenia Space’s leading positions in the fields of space transportation systems, orbital infrastructures and space exploration."
Adaptability is a key element of Argonaut's design, which is why the cargo platform is designed to accept any mission profile: cargo for astronauts near the landing site, a rover, technology demonstration packages, production facilities using lunar resources, a lunar telescope or even a power station. The project will strengthen Thales Alenia Space’s skills in several technological areas essential to space exploration beyond the Moon.
The future space ecosystem requires new solutions dedicated to the transport and return of cargo from low Earth orbit and lunar orbit, as well as crew transport to low Earth orbit. Thales Alenia Space is ready to put in place what is needed to prepare for humanity’s future life and presence in Space, laying the foundations for the post-ISS era and meeting new economic needs for research and science.