ESA and ispace-EUROPE have officially signed the Phase 2 contract for MAGPIE, Europe’s first lunar polar ice exploration rover mission.
It’s official: MAGPIE is really happening. ESA and Luxembourg’s ispace-EUROPE signed the Phase 2 agreement for the mission on the main stage of ESA’s Space for Inspiration 2026 in Copenhagen, cementing the €65 million contract ESA awarded back in July.
Daniel Neuenschwander, ESA’s Director of Human and Robotic Exploration, and Julien-Alexandre Lamamy, CEO of ispace-EUROPE, put pen to paper together.
The mission, which we first told you about when the rover project was announced, will send a rover to the Moon’s south pole in 2029 to hunt for water ice, hitching a ride on ispace’s Mission 4 ULTRA lander. Five European countries are pitching in instruments, from a drill built in Germany to a radar from Norway.
“MAGPIE will provide critical knowledge for the next phase of sustainable lunar exploration,” said Neuenschwander. Lamamy called it a way to turn “European expertise into real operational capability on the Moon” — building on the momentum of ispace-EUROPE’s TENACIOUS rover, which flew in 2025.
