Enabling & Support
21/11/2025
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To reach new exploration heights, it is important that we find space missions that can be launched at a lower cost, especially when we’re talking about challenging destinations like the Moon or Mars. ESA is now funding new ideas from scientists and engineers to build smaller missions to explore the Moon.
Last year, the Preparation Element of ESA’s Basic Activities called for ideas for small missions to explore the Moon. This initiative is part of ESA’s Terrae Novae exploration programme, which is developing Europe’s presence in space by using robots as precursors and scouts.Â
The Explore2040 strategy goals include continuing European presence in low Earth orbit, enabling Europeans to explore the Moon to better understand our Solar System and expanding our knowledge of Mars to prepare to take Europeans to this horizon goal and return them safely to Earth. The call for ideas aims to fund lunar exploration efforts, with the ultimate goal of preparing the first small missions to be carried out as pilots between 2028 and 2030.
Small missions, big benefits
Small missions to explore the Moon are beneficial for a number of reasons. They are cost-effective, require less funding and allow for more frequent missions, which favours a sustained exploration effort. Small missions can be developed and launched more quickly, enabling scientists to make swift changes and adapt to new scientific questions or technological advances. They also help to mitigate risk by spreading goals across multiple missions, reducing the impact of a single mission failure.
“While any mission to the Moon remains a risky undertaking, advances in technology and the widespread development of CubeSats and Microsats enable this type of mission which would not have been feasible 10 years ago,” says Xavier Barbier, the ESA technology coordinator leading the call for ideas. “These are not going to be major missions, but they can clearly respond to specific needs, filling in some scientific gaps or providing de-risking capabilities for larger missions.”
Small missions and the Moon
This isn’t the first time ESA has funded ideas in the field of small missions and lunar exploration. The Discovery and Preparation Programme’s annual SysNova challenge has been running for four years, and in 2018 the challenge focused on Lunar Cubesats. At the time, the competition was intense and generated a number of alternative solutions to support ESA’s lunar exploration goals.Â
One of the winning ideas was the Lunar Volatile and Mineralogy Mapping Orbiter (VMMO), a low lunar orbit CubeSat mission designed to detect water-ice and other volatiles in specific lunar craters, while providing radiation measurements of the environment between the Moon and Earth. An upgraded version of the mission was submitted during the Small Missions Call and selected as a Direct Track for more mature mission concepts.
The call for ideas
The call sought a wide range of small missions to the Moon, as long as they focused on exploration and scientific activities. ESA looked for missions to help us better understand the environments of deep space and the Moon, and how exposure to these environments affects technology and biology. They also searched for missions to monitor, predict and mitigate the changes that human activities will bring to the lunar environment. Additionally, missions that could provide higher resolution mapping of potential landing sites and other locations on the lunar surface were of interest.
Of all the ideas submitted by institutions, start-ups, companies and researchers from across Europe, eight received funding for studying and maturing the mission concepts further.
“We received a large number of high quality proposals,” says Xavier. “The vast majority of them were for scientific purposes, i.e. missions that will try to image the lunar surface and study the lunar radiation environment”.
The resulting ideas, which have been developed through mission studies, range from CubeSat to Smallsat missions, studying lunar resources and providing very high-resolution mapping.
In addition, a surface mission, MAGPIE, was selected and put on a direct implementation path towards a landing on the Moon by the end of the decade.
While working on the missions, study teams had to ensure that the total cost of their proposed missions would target €50 million and that their development from kick-off of feasibility assessment to launch would take less than four and a half years.
More details on the activities:
These mission studies have now been completed, and a selection process is ongoing to decide which missions will go through the next phase.
Commercial gains
In addition to the opportunities these missions bring to the scientific community, they also pave the way for boosting the European space industry. Over time, if there is a regular demand for small missions, companies can use the platforms they have already built to deliver products and services to address the lunar missions market.
“These missions are very cost-effective and can expand Europe’s commercial capabilities in that area” Xavier concludes.
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