The European Space Agency expects to award a contract to build the main element of its Argonaut lunar lander in the first quarter of 2025.
Funding for the Argonaut lunar lander project was approved by ESA Member States in November 2022 at the agency’s Ministerial Council meeting in Paris. Argonaut will be a multi-role lunar lander capable of delivering up to 1,600 kilograms of cargo to the surface of the Moon. It will consist of three main elements: the lunar descent element, the cargo platform element, and, finally, the payload itself.
During his annual briefing to the press on 9 January, ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher revealed that the agency expects to select a primary contractor for the lunar descent element in 2025. Following the briefing, ESA’s Director of Human and Robotic Exploration, Daniel Neuenschwander, shared a statement on LinkedIn that further narrowed the timeline to the first quarter of the year.
In its Explore 2040 strategy, ESA describes the development of the Argonaut lunar lander as a “first step” toward the agency’s ambition to “play a significant role on the Moon’s surface.” ESA envisions the lander supporting not just science missions but also providing cargo logistics services for human missions to the Moon within NASA’s Artemis architecture.
According to a Phase A/B1 development document published in July 2024, ESA is targeting 2031 for the launch of the first Argonaut mission. The lander is set to launch aboard an ArianeGroup Ariane 64 rocket from the Guiana Space Centre.
