Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

ESA’s LightShip tug promises to open a market of low-cost missions to Mars for a broader community.
Image credit: ESA

The European Space Agency is sparking a new initiative, one that aims at small-scale missions to explore the Red Planet.

An element of the ESA LightShip propulsion tug concept is engaging select groups to independently scope out what a small, low-cost Mars satellite platform looks like as a LightShip passenger.

ESA’s LightShip is a propulsive tug, or interplanetary transfer service. It would provide the propulsive nudge for a passenger spacecraft to transfer to Mars and enter Mars’ orbit.

LightShip would also host the Mars Communication and Navigation Infrastructure (MARCONI) offering a dedicated data relay service.

Image credit: ESA

Potential passengers

The four consortia – led by Argotec, Deimos Space, Politecnico di Milano with SITAEL, and Redwire respectively – will explore the potential of passenger spacecraft platforms that could be delivered to Mars by the LightShip propulsive tug.

Explains Claire Parfitt, Mars Exploration Study Team Lead in ESA’s Directorate of Human and Robotic Exploration and technical officer of the activity: “ESA’s LightShip concept aims to open up access to Mars for a wider community than is usually the case.”

Moreover, Parfitt added, “the nature of LightShip is such that it makes us open to international partnerships as well.”

The Red Planet as seen by Europe’s Mars Express.
Image credit: ESA/D. O’Donnell – CC BY-SA IGO

The LightShip concept kicks off an ESA Explore2040 strategy for future Mars missions. “In 2026, we plan to use the results from this study to investigate full exploration mission concepts. Those concepts could be future passenger candidates for LightShip,” said Parfitt in an ESA statement.

Use cases

In the main LightShip study, “use cases” to support missions to the Moon, asteroids, and other destinations are to be appraised.

According to ESA, further development of the mission will depend on decisions made at the next ESA Council at Ministerial Level in November 2025.

If given the go-ahead, the first LightShip mission is foreseen in 2032, with subsequent launch windows open in 2035 or 2037.

Future LightShip missions will carry different passenger spacecraft to be decided by the science and exploration communities.

Image credit: NASA

Paradigm shifts

ESA’s LightShip initiative would seem compatible with a NASA report issued late last year: Expanding the Horizons of Mars Science – A Plan for a Sustainable Science Program at Mars – Mars Exploration Program 2024-2044.

NASA released the document that calls for programmatic paradigm shifts in further exploration of the Red Planet over the next 20 years. Those paradigm shifts underscored in the document include lower-cost Mars missions.

A range of less-expensive landers, rovers and aerial vehicles are foreseen to help advance a sustainable human presence on Mars.
Image credit: Keck Institute for Space Studies (KISS)/Chuck Carter (Used with permission)

Eric Ianson, then Director of the NASA Mars Exploration Program (now retired) states in that report there’s need to “challenge conventional thinking and look to new and creative solutions for the exploration of Mars.”

This can include “seeking lower-cost science investigations, strengthening our infrastructure around Mars, seeking new enabling technologies, and creating an environment that broadens participation in Mars exploration,” Ianson explains.