The contract was confirmed by ESA's Director of Human and Robotic Exploration, David Parker, and SSTL's Managing Director, Phil Brownnett, on 15 September 2021 at The Royal Society in London. ESA is also discussing with NASA how Lunar Pathfinder could support its wider lunar exploration program.

The Lunar Pathfinder mission also hosts two separate ESA experiments, the first testing the possibility of using existing navigation satellites for positioning on the moon and the second a space weather monitor to understand radiation levels around the moon-important for human explorers.įurthermore, NASA will provide a laser retro-reflector payload allowing comparison with the orbit positioning data from ESA's navigation experiment. We have been collaborating with ESA since 2018 to scope Lunar Pathfinder for the commercial market, and we look forward to realizing our ambition to provide cost effective services and navigation data for users all over the world.' SSTL's Phil Brownnett said 'We are delighted to sign up ESA as our anchor customer for communication services from our Lunar Pathfinder mission. As a leader in lunar exploration, ESA plans to use its services extensively.' 'SSTL's Lunar Pathfinder service will be available to all, enabling lower cost lunar science, technology demonstration and commercial exploration. 'Exploration is about discovery and returning knowledge to Earth, so in the new era of lunar exploration we require a robust and fast communications service,' says ESA's director of Human and Robotic Exploration, David Parker. A communications relay satellite such as Lunar Pathfinder is necessary to ensure continuous contact for both robots and humans. The far side and polar regions of the moon are a particular area of interest to space agencies as a potential source of resources for water, fuel and oxygen. Such satellites could also provide navigation data for lunar exploration, just as today we navigate using Galileo and GPS on Earth. Lunar Pathfinder is a first step towards ESA's ambitious moonlight vision to create a network of communications and data relay satellites serving users worldwide.

These include NASA's Artemis program, commercial lunar landers, Russia's Luna 25 and 27 landers and the future European Large Lunar Lander (E元). A whole suite of lunar exploration missions is on the horizon, many of which have ESA involvement.

Galileo optics