02/09/2026
A milestone for MAGPIE and for European lunar exploration. 🌙
Yesterday at ESA’s Space for Inspiration conference in Copenhagen, ispace-EUROPE and the ESA - European Space Agency marked the MAGPIE mission agreement with an official signing ceremony led by Daniel Neuenschwander, ESA Director of Human and Robotic Exploration, and Julien Lamamy, CEO of ispace-EUROPE.
Led by ispace-EUROPE as prime contractor to ESA, MAGPIE brings together scientific and engineering expertise from across Europe to investigate lunar volatiles and water ice in the Moon’s south polar region.
The MAGPIE consortium includes:
- Technical University of Munich, Germany - providing an instrumented drill Volatiles Sampler as a part of the Lunar Volatiles Scout
- ESR Technology, United Kingdom - providing a Drill Translation Unit as a part of the Lunar Volatiles Scout
- The Open University, United Kingdom - providing an Ion Trap Mass Spectrometer Volatile Analyzer as a part of the Lunar Volatiles Scout
- RAL Space, United Kingdom - leading the joint assembly and testing activities of the Volatile Analyzer with the support of Open University
- CENSSS: Centre for Space Sensors and Systems at the Universitetet i Oslo (UiO) | University of Oslo, Norway - providing the Lunar RiMFAX Ground Penetrating Radar
- Institute of Experimental and Applied Physics at the Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic - providing a neutron spectrometer suite of Neutron HardPix and a Radiation HardPix
Through MAGPIE, we are building the European operational capability, knowledge and experience needed to deliver increasingly ambitious missions on the lunar surface, while helping lay the foundations for future lunar exploration globally.
Thank you to ESA, and every member of the MAGPIE consortium, for joining us on this journey.
A few moments from yesterday’s signing ceremony 📸
Read more about the milestone and what comes next for MAGPIE 👉 https://www.ispace-inc.com/2026/09/02/esa-and-ispace-europe-mark-official-signing-of-europes-first-lunar-polar-ice-exploration-rover-mission/