ESA's first lunar rover MAGPIE goes to ispace-EUROPE for a 2029 landing at the south pole
ESA has picked ispace-EUROPE as prime contractor for MAGPIE, the agency's first lunar rover, in a signing at the Space for Inspiration event in Copenhagen. Carrying a drill, a volatile analyser, a ground-penetrating radar and a neutron detector, the rover is designed to work for roughly 10 Earth days at the Moon's south pole. It rides down in 2029 on ispace's Mission 4 lander, under a partnership between ESA and Japan's space agency JAXA.
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ESA names ispace-EUROPE prime contractor for MAGPIE
ESA has selected ispace-EUROPE as prime contractor to build, develop and fly MAGPIE, the agency's first lunar rover, at a signing ceremony held during the Space for Inspiration event in Copenhagen. The name stands for the Mission for Advanced Geophysics and Polar Ice Exploration. Daniel Neuenschwander, ESA Director of Human and Robotic Exploration, said MAGPIE would give critical knowledge for the next phase of sustainable lunar exploration. ispace says the ceremony followed ESA's July 2026 award of a Phase 2 contract worth 65 million euros to ispace-EUROPE, covering rover and payload development, manufacture, testing, transport to the lunar surface, mission operations and delivery of scientific data to ESA.[1], [2]
The drill, radar and neutron detector are aimed at polar ice
The rover carries a drill, a volatile analyser, a ground-penetrating radar and a neutron detector, and is designed to work for roughly 10 Earth days at the Moon's south pole. The drill and the volatile analyser sample material directly, while the radar and the neutron detector probe hydrogen and structure below the surface. Led by ispace-EUROPE from Luxembourg, the MAGPIE consortium brings together scientific and engineering groups from five European countries: Technische Universität München supplies the instrumented drill volatiles sampler, ESR Technology the drill translation unit, The Open University an ion trap mass spectrometer volatile analyzer, RAL Space the joint assembly and testing of the analyser, the University of Oslo the Lunar RiMFAX ground penetrating radar, and the Czech Technical University in Prague a neutron spectrometer suite of Neutron HardPix and Radiation HardPix.[1], [2]
A 2029 ride to the south pole on ispace's Mission 4 lander
MAGPIE rides down to the lunar surface in 2029 on ispace's Mission 4 ULTRA lander, with the transport enabled through collaboration between ESA and Japan's space agency JAXA. ispace says the Mission 4 lander performs a high-precision landing under a grant from the Space Strategy Fund programme administered by JAXA. Some areas near the lunar poles stay in permanent shadow and may preserve water ice over extremely long periods, and how that ice is distributed, how it interacts with the surrounding terrain and how it can be detected sit among the scientific objectives ispace sets out. ispace-EUROPE builds MAGPIE on the experience of its TENACIOUS rover, launched on ispace Mission 2 in 2025 as the first European-designed, manufactured and assembled lunar rover to launch into space.[1], [2]
