Argonaut Mission 1

Argonaut is a European Space Agency (ESA) lunar lander being designed for a series of missions with many options for its payloads, from cargo and infrastructure delivery to performing scientific operations. Argonaut will launch on an Ariane 6 rocket in a direct flight to the Moon. An Argonaut mission from launch to landing could take from a week to a month, depending on orbits and mission design. No area is off-limits for Argonaut, the spacecraft will be able to land at any region on the Moon. The Argonaut spacecraft has three main components: the lunar descent element that takes care of flying to the Moon and landing on target, the cargo platform element that is the interface between the lander and its payload, and finally, the element that mission designers want to send to the Moon. The first mission is envisioned to deal with delivery of dedicated navigation and telecommunication payloads as well as energy generation and storage system, as European enterprises to explore the Lunar southern area.