Updated Frequently Asked Questions document v2 has been added following the information workshop and Q&A session, accessible here.
ESA HRE Exploration Science: Advancing Knowledge, Inspiring Innovation
The European Space Agency's (ESA) Exploration Science element is part of the European Exploration Envelope Programme (E3P) within its Directorate for Human and Robotic Exploration (HRE).
ESA’s Exploration Science element, a cornerstone of the Explore2040 strategy, uniquely balances Exploration-Focused Science, essential for enabling human and robotic exploration beyond Earth, with Exploration-Enabled Science that leverages our capabilities for groundbreaking research across science disciplines.
Through this Announcement of Opportunity, we invite you to become part of Europe's journey into space, contributing your expertise to a programme that balances scientific rigour with the challenges of exploration.
AIM OF THIS ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY
The aim of this Announcement of Opportunity (AO) is to be able to establish different categories of lunar science building blocks that can be prepared and assembled to create a pipeline of scientific instruments and integrated instrument suites (hereafter both referred to as instruments for brevity) ready for orbital and landed at the surface Moon missions across different E3P programme periods. Each E3P programme period is for a duration of 3 years.
Lunar science building block categories are to include:
- Flight Candidates: Instruments with sufficient maturity to be considered for near-term flight, with development initiated within the current programme period (EP3 P4, 2026-2028), i.e. within 2-3 years of development from KO. Proposals will need to come with existing or in development hardware, or with a very mature design and a clear demonstration of the science performance.
- Preparation Candidates: Instruments with sufficient maturity to be considered for preparation in this programme period ready for a potential flight development in the next programme period (E3P P5, 2029-2031). Proposals in this category will need to have demonstrated the performance and maturity of the instrument to a level compatible with development to flight 3-5 years from KO.
- Maturation Candidates: Instrument concepts with potential promising science requiring deeper investigation and significant maturation for consideration for flight for later programme periods from E3P P6 (2032-2034) onwards, i.e., requiring 5 years+ development time from KO.
Other lunar science building block categories may be identified and defined following the findings of the AO review process.
Allocation of instruments to a lunar science building block category will be informed by the combined findings and recommendations received from a science peer review panel and technical review panel (see AO Review Process and Criteria section).
Assignment to a lunar science building block category does not commit ESA to taking further action. However it does mean that ESA can consider the proposed instrument for an appropriate activity, the proposed instrument having been identified as achieving the required scientific quality and technical maturity to be considered.
Proposal Guidance:
Proposals submitted in the framework of this AO can present an individual instrument or an integrated suite of instruments that can benefit Exploration-Focused Science, Exploration-Enabled Science, or both.
HRE identified Exploration-Focused and Exploration-Enabled Science themes for the Moon are described within the Exploration Science at the Moon information document provided here.
Furthermore, instruments can be submitted for lunar orbital or landed at the surface mission applications, or for both. Please indicate which of these type of mission application(s) is/are compatible with your proposed instrument and why when submitting your proposal.
Important considerations for when submitting a proposal include:
- Proposed instruments shall be scientifically excellent and technically implementable for lunar flight - orbital and/or landed at the surface.
- Proposing teams shall ideally include both scientific and technical expertise, e.g., including capabilities for instrument technical development, product assurance, science performance calibration and data management.
- Proposals will be strengthened by the provision of evidence that demonstrates the measurement performance viability of the proposed instrument (e.g., outcomes from physical/breadboard tests, simulations, models, etc.).
- Instrument proposals that contribute to one or more of the HRE Exploration-Focused Science themes for the Moon are strongly encouraged.
- Proposals that contribute to addressing Exploration-Enabled Science objectives are also encouraged to be submitted and will be fairly reviewed in accordance with the review criteria.
- Assume no sample or instrument return-to-Earth capability.
- Assume uncrewed mission scenarios.
- Instrumentation pertaining to human-subject analyses is out of scope of this AO.
APPLICATION PROCESS
You are invited to submit your proposal by clicking the “Submit Your Idea” button at the top or bottom of this page and filling in all sections of the submission form, including uploading the required documents where indicated.
Please take note of the 'Eligibility' and 'Special Conditions' outlined in the relevant section below before submitting a proposal.
Ideas start in draft status and can be stored as such in case information for mandatory fields is still missing. Draft ideas are only visible to authors. As soon as all mandatory information is available, even if not final, authors are encouraged to submit the idea. Please note, that it is also required to submit the idea when uploading the requested Letter of Intent. Thereafter, Idea proposals can continue to be edited and updated until the proposal submission deadline via the 'Edit Idea' option on the bottom left of the screen. Edits will be automatically saved and submitted. Only the final version of the proposal following the submission deadline will be entered into the review process.
When preparing your proposal, please ensure to:
- Provide a Letter of Intent to submit a proposal by Monday 13 July. Signed Letters of Intent are to be uploaded as an attachment to the submission form, where indicated to do so. You must press submit idea.
- The Letter of Intent should be a short indication of intent to submit a full proposal, including a high-level summary of the instrument or instrument suite, how it can contribute to key identified exploration science objectives, basic measurement principle(s), and an indication of orbital and/or landed at the surface mission type. Basic information of key contributing institutes/affiliations within the proposing team is also beneficial.
- Upload a completed Science and Technical Content Proposal Document using the template provided here.
- Upload completed and signed Privacy Notice forms for all proposers. The Privacy Notice form is provided here.
- Inform your National Agency of your interest and intent to submit a proposal. A list of National Agency Points of Contact are provided here.
A Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) document is attached here. Other questions that you may have, please ask via the OSIP platform. You can also communicate via the Campaign's public discussion area.
Information Workshop and Q&A Session:
An Information Workshop and Q&A session will be held virtually via Teams on Thursday 2 July, 14.30-16.00 (CEST). You are invited to join via the following link information: https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/391311948291399?p=TJLarAo5fBLmvWna5R
- Meeting ID: 391 311 948 291 399
- Passcode: Dn2DN7kW
- Dial in by phone: +31 20 258 8798,,495603687# Netherlands, Amsterdam
- Phone conference ID: 495 603 687#
Schedule:
- Issuance of AO: Wednesday 10 June, 2026
- AO Information Workshop and Q&A session: Thursday 2 July 2026, 14.30-16.00 (CEST) via Teams https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/391311948291399?p=TJLarAo5fBLmvWna5R
- Letter of Intent submission deadline: Monday 13 July 2026, 23.59 (CEST)
- Proposal submission deadline: Friday 4 September 2026, 23.59 (CEST)
- Notification of Review Findings: Early 2027
REVIEW PROCESS & CRITERIA
Technical Review
A review panel of ESA internal experts will conduct the technical review based on the assessment of:
- Maturity and credibility of the technical definition content.
- Lunar application and relevance and discussion of the problem areas.
- Technical development feasibility against the relevant lunar science building block category (i.e., Flight Candidate, Preparation Candidate, or Maturation Candidate).
- Adequacy of technical management, costing, personnel, etc.
The technical review panel will generate a set of review findings and recommendations based on the assessment outcomes.
Science Merit Review
A science peer review panel of international, multidisciplinary experts will review the science merit of the proposals against the below weighted sub-criteria and pass/fail criteria:
- Significance (50%) - Does the proposed instrument address an important problem or challenge within the scope of the AO? Is there a clear, well-grounded and elaborated scientific justification and motivation provided in the proposal?
- Approach and Methodology (35%) - Are the conceptual framework, design, methods, and analyses adequately developed, well-integrated and appropriate to the aims and objectives of the proposed instrument? Will the instrument and its described performance yield robust results and how is this justified? Does the proposer acknowledge scientific risks and suggest mitigation? Has data management been discussed (e.g., data pipelines, calibration, resultant data products, etc.)?
- Knowledge Translation and Future Impact (15%) - Will the outcomes of the proposed instrument provide a benefit to Earth or for space exploration? Will the targeted data and data products (or other aspects related to the instrument) have a sustained impact on exploration science in the future?
- Personnel and Environment (Pass/Fail) - Are there sufficient and appropriate personnel dedicated to the proposed instrument idea.
- Moon Application (Pass/Fail) - Is the proposed instrument and the associated measurements appropriate for the Moon application, or can another platform or destination be utilised?
All reviewers will be required to declare any potential Conflict of Interests and will not participate to the review of proposals where there may be a potential Conflict of Interest identified. A minimum of two peer-reviewers will be assigned to each proposal.
A science merit score and rating will be yielded per proposal, as well as a set of review findings and recommendations from the science peer review panel.
Peer-reviewers will give each sub-criterion a score between 0 and 100 as they assess proposals against each sub-criterion. An overall scientific merit score of 0 to 100 will be yielded for each proposal, which accounts for the combined sub-criteria scores and their weighting factors.
As a result, proposals will receive science merit ratings as outlined below.
Proposals receiving an overall science merit rating of Excellent or higher (i.e., 81 or higher) and a minimum rating of Very Good (i.e., 71 or higher) for each individual sub-criterion will be considered for assignment to a lunar science building block category.
Final allocation to a lunar science building block category is pending an ESA Review Board assessment of the presented science merit scores combined with the overall findings and recommendations of both review panels.
Review Notification
Following approval of the final review recommendations, lead proposers will be individually informed in February 2027 of the outcome of the review in a confidential letter. This will include a summary report of the technical and science merit review findings. The outcomes will be final and not open to appeal.
KEY PRODUCTS & OUTCOMES
ESA key products that will be generated include:
- A report of synthesised AO findings and recommendations.
- A technical and scientific database of instruments assigned to different categories of lunar science building blocks.
The report and database will be consulted to inform ESA HRE lunar roadmap implementation preparations and decision making in alignment with Explore 2040.
It is intended to make a certain amount of database information publicly available to foster collaborative mission opportunities. This can be discussed on a case-by-case basis, following the findings of the AO outcome.
If a development or flight opportunity may be identified for an instrument within any of the lunar science building block categories, the specific development and implementation route will be decided on a case-by-case basis in alignment with the identified opportunity and programmatic bounds.
ESA Data Archive
Data archiving is mandatory for a scientific ESA mission. Should an instrument proposed via an ESA AO later be implemented to flight, raw and calibrated data generated by that instrument shall be provided to ESA. The data deliverables shall be provided in open and readable formats (i.e., not requiring special or proprietary tools to read them) unless otherwise is agreed with the HRE Science Data Archive (HREDA) and/or the ESA Planetary Science Archive (PSA). ESA Archived Data is made publicly available.
Important Notes
- Proposers of instruments that were previously within the recently closed Reserve Pool of Science Activities for the Moon are encouraged to apply to the AO, provided they are compatible with the new scope and criteria.
- Submission of a proposal does not guarantee selection and assignment of an instrument to a lunar science building block category.
- Selection and assignment of an instrument to a lunar science building block category does not guarantee any subsequent instrument development support or implementation to flight.
- ESA reserves the right to adapt the lunar science building blocks categorisation approach at any time, based on findings and lessons learned during and following the AO process.
Potential Future AO Prospects
A subsequent AO is foreseen to be undertaken in the next Programme Period (E3P P5) c.2029, pending the outcomes and lessons learned from this AO. In the case that a new AO is released, the Exploration Science themes and scope of the AO will be updated and revised in alignment with the programme strategy and mission opportunities at the time. Proposers, existing and new, will be invited to submit freshly updated or new proposals to the new AO. Following the AO review process, a new up-to-date database of constituent lunar science building block categories will be produced that reflects the new AO review findings.
References and Links
