Belgium’s Space Applications Services has secured a ride for its LUVMI-M rover aboard a Blue Origin Blue Moon Mark 1 lunar lander.
The company announced the agreement on 23 September, saying the mission is on track to become Europe’s first fully commercial lunar rover mission. Although development of the LUVMI family has benefited from public funding and support from the European Union, the European Space Agency and the Belgian Science Policy Office, Space Applications Services told European Spaceflight that the upcoming mission itself is being financed through payload reservations and service contracts.
“The mission is fully commercial,” said a spokesperson for the company. “It is financed via payload reservations and operations services contracts with the customers (private sector mostly, but also open to agencies and public organisations).”
According to the company, the mission is currently expected to launch in early 2029, more than a year later than the target outlined in March 2025, when the company was aiming for the rover to make its debut in Q4 2027. Once delivered to the lunar south polar region aboard Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 1 lunar lander and operated from Space Applications Services’ mission control facilities in Belgium.
LUVMI-M, which stands for Lunar Volatiles Mobile Instrumentation-Medium, is a compact rover weighing approximately 20 kilograms and capable of carrying up to 20 kilograms of customer payloads. The baseline mission is designed to last between 10 and 14 Earth days, during which the rover is expected to travel up to five kilometres across the lunar surface.
