Daily news

ArianeGroup boosts orbital propulsion business with agreements on lunar spacecraft and new propulsion platform

ArianeGroup has strengthened its orbital propulsion systems business with two agreements signed at the 77th International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Antalya, Turkey.

ArianeGroup and ispace, a global lunar exploration company based in Japan, aim to expand their partnership on the development of lunar spacecraft. Building on ArianeGroup's extensive flight heritage and experience in space systems, ispace has selected ArianeGroup pulsing thrusters and reaction control system (RCS) thruster hardware for integration into its ULTRA lunar landers. ArianeGroup is also contracted to provide related assembly, integration, and testing (AIT) services in support of the development.

Through the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), ArianeGroup and ispace intend to explore new opportunities to expand their collaboration beyond the ULTRA lander program. With ispace-EUROPE and ispace-U.S. as co-signatories, the agreement is expected to fortify current and future ispace missions in Japan, Europe, the United States, and other mutually agreed markets.

The agreement builds on a longstanding relationship between ispace and ArianeGroup, including collaboration on propulsion components and assembly, integration, and testing for ispace's Mission 1 lunar lander at ArianeGroup's facility in Lampoldshausen, Germany. In 2021, ispace-EUROPE and ArianeGroup were also jointly selected by the European Space Agency (ESA) to participate in a pilot phase aimed at establishing commercial partnerships for lunar transportation and exploration.

ArianeGroup and Space Solutions Co., a specialist in space propulsion technology based in South Corea, are joining forces to expand their footprint in the propulsion market for low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellations. By combining their expertise in precision component manufacturing and system-level integration, while building on their extensive heritage in orbital propulsion systems, the two companies aim to significantly enhance quality and production efficiency across the manufacturing, testing and integration of LEO propulsion systems.

The Memorandum of Understanding details plans to cooperate on a new propulsion platform that is based on ArianeGroup's next-generation propulsion platform AMPS. Designed for the needs of modern LEO constellations, this propulsion platform combines high performance and scalability in a compact, modular architecture. Its standardized design enables efficient integration for LEO satellite classes while supporting the full range of in-orbit operations, from deployment to station keeping, collision avoidance and end-of-life disposal.