ESA and JAXA Strengthen Ties on Moon and Mars Exploration

The European Space Agency's (ESA) Director of Human and Robotic Exploration, Daniel Neuenschwander, and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) Vice President for Exploration and Human Spaceflight, Mayumi Matsuura, have signed a new statement of intent focused on Moon and Mars activities. This statement marks their intention towards a step forward in space exploration cooperation between ESA and JAXA, and lays the groundwork for expanded collaboration between the two agencies in advancing science, technology and international partnerships.

ESA and JAXA share a common vision for exploration, including:

• Advancing our understanding of the Moon, Mars and other celestial bodies,
• Developing and demonstrating key technologies for sustainable exploration,
• Coordinating scientific investigations,
• Inspiring future generations through ambitious and innovative missions.

The statement of intent aligns with the Explore2040 vision and ESA’s upcoming proposal for the ESA Council at Ministerial level in November 2025. It builds on a series of agreements between ESA and JAXA, including a joint statement on “Next Big Cooperations” in 2024 and the 2023 Lunar Communication and Navigation study agreement as part of ESA’s Moonlight programme.

“ESA and JAXA share a long-standing commitment to exploration. This new statement marks another milestone as we join forces to unlock the mysteries of the Moon and Mars together,” says Daniel Neuenschwander, ESA’s Director of Human and Robotic Exploration.

Exploring the Moon
The statement of intent highlights many opportunities for collaboration in exploring the Moon:

• Joint studies on lunar surface operations, focusing on how ESA’s Argonaut lander and JAXA’s pressurised rover can work together within the Artemis framework, with potential extra-vehicular activity (EVA) demonstrations at ESA’s LUNA facility.
• Cooperation on robotic missions, such as flying ESA payloads on JAXA’s lunar missions, for example the positioning, navigation and timing receiver LunaNET for navigation services, or including Japanese scientific investigations on ESA’s Argonaut or other small lunar projects, and exploring commercial mission opportunities.
• Developing technological synergies in power systems, communication and navigation, robots and working on interoperability at system and sub-system levels.
• Defining a joint mission to demonstrate LunaNET’s capabilities, alongside collaborative global navigation satellite system (GNSS) data analysis of ESA’s Lunar Pathfinder mission.

Exploring Mars
For Mars activities, ESA and JAXA will explore:

• Working together on orbital transfer vehicles, including possible JAXA involvement in ESA’s LightShip tug vehicle or other Mars orbital transfer concepts.
• A future sample return mission from Deimos, one of Mars’ moons, in the 2030s.
• Developing and sharing infrastructure for communications and navigations services to support Mars exploration.
• Exchange of payloads for ESA and JAXA Mars missions, focusing on areas such as heavy cargo and precision landing, and a sample return from Deimos.

Next steps
Technical teams from ESA and JAXA will begin working closely to define their roles and how they’ll work together; exchanging detailed data will be key to ensuring a seamless cooperation. Once these are in place, and pending further approval and funding, more formal agreements between the two agencies will be established.