Europe awards $900 million contract for Argonaut lunar lander development

ORLANDO, Fla. — Thales Alenia Space announced a contract worth nearly $900 million Jan. 30 to develop and deliver the Lunar Descent Element (LDE) for Argonaut, the European Space Agency’s cargo lander slated for missions to the Moon starting in the 2030s.

The contract includes mission design and integration of the LDE, which would be responsible for transporting and landing the spacecraft on the Moon. The LDE would be joined by an adaptable interface element designed to support a wide variety of cargo and scientific payloads.

Thales Alenia Space, a joint venture between France’s Thales and Italy’s Leonardo, said Argonaut’s first mission is expected to deliver navigation and telecommunication payloads, along with an energy generation and storage system, supporting commercial European exploration of the lunar south pole

The European Space Agency is also positioning Argonaut, which has a capacity of approximately two metric tons of cargo, as a potential asset for future NASA Artemis lunar missions.

“This new element of the Artemis program will facilitate long-duration human lunar exploration missions and be crucial for enhancing European autonomy in lunar exploration,” said Thales Alenia Space CEO Hervé Derrey.

As part of Artemis, NASA directed SpaceX and Blue Origin last year to develop cargo variants of their Human Landing System (HLS) landers, capable of transporting at least 12 metric tons to the lunar surface. This greatly surpasses Argonaut’s capacity and also exceeds the capabilities of the smaller robotic landers currently delivering science and technology demonstration payloads under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program.

Thales Alenia Space emphasized Argonaut’s versatility, with an interface designed to support a wide range of missions. According to the company, the lander could carry supplies for astronauts, deploy rovers, host technology demonstrations, support lunar resource utilization, and accommodate a telescope or power station.

While Thales Alenia Space is the prime contractor for LDE development, overall mission responsibility, including payload integration and LDE operations, will be determined through a separate procurement process in the future.