The European Space Agency (ESA) has awarded ispace-Europe a €65m contract to deliver MAGPIE, Europe’s first lunar surface exploration mission, which will investigate water ice and other volatiles at the Moon’s south pole.
The agreement was formally signed at ESA Space for Inspiration 2026 in Copenhagen by Daniel Neuenschwander, ESA’s Director of Human and Robotic Exploration, and Julien-Alexandre Lamamy, CEO of ispace-Europe.
The contract, awarded in July 2026, covers the remaining development and delivery of MAGPIE.
The lunar rover is scheduled to launch in 2029 aboard ispace’s Mission 4 ULTRA lunar lander.
Its results are expected to improve understanding of the Moon’s south polar environment while providing data that could help shape future resource prospecting and longer-duration lunar missions.
Neuenschwander highlighted the significance of the project: “The Moon’s south pole is a key destination for future exploration.
“By prospecting for water and other volatile resources, MAGPIE will provide critical knowledge for the next phase of sustainable lunar exploration.
“As ESA’s first lunar rover and first mission part of the Moon Explore initiative which aims at developing key capabilities in a more agile and efficient way, MAGPIE demonstrates a new approach to exploration.
“Combining ambitious scientific and technological objectives with a faster, more cost-effective development model, the mission brings together European expertise and international cooperation through our partnership with JAXA.”
Lunar rover to search for water ice
MAGPIE, short for Mission for Advanced Geophysics and Polar Ice Exploration, will spend around 10 Earth days exploring the lunar south pole.
Its mobile platform will carry a drill, volatile analyser, ground-penetrating radar and neutron detector across different locations and geological features.
By comparing measurements from multiple sites, scientists will be able to investigate how water ice, other volatiles, regolith and subsurface geology vary across the region.
Some areas around the lunar poles remain permanently shadowed, potentially allowing water ice to survive for extremely long periods. Understanding its distribution and properties is considered important for future exploration.
Water extracted from the lunar surface could eventually support longer-duration human missions and potentially provide resources for exploration deeper into the Solar System.
European consortium behind MAGPIE
Led by ispace-Europe in Luxembourg, the MAGPIE consortium brings together organisations from five European countries, including Technische Universität München, ESR Technology, the Open University, RAL Space, the University of Oslo, and the Czech Technical University in Prague.
The €65m contract covers rover and payload development, manufacturing, testing, transportation to the lunar surface, mission operations and delivery of scientific data to ESA.
ispace-Europe will also build on experience from its TENACIOUS rover, which launched on ispace’s Mission 2 in 2025.
Lamamy says MAGPIE will help integrate European technologies into a complete lunar mission and develop the capabilities needed for future human activity on the Moon.
He added: “MAGPIE brings together some of Europe’s leading scientific and engineering expertise around a shared ambition for the Moon.
“We are proud to lead this consortium alongside ESA, combining commercial delivery with world-class science to investigate the lunar south pole while building Europe’s operational capability on the lunar surface.
“The knowledge and experience we build through MAGPIE will extend far beyond this mission, helping to lay the foundations for future lunar exploration missions globally.”
The mission will give Europe practical experience in operating a lunar rover while generating data that could guide future resource prospecting, robotic exploration and sustained human activity on the Moon.
