ESA’s Lightship Propulsive Tug; an Enabler for Small, Low -Cost Mars Missions

The Exploration, Preparation, Research and Technology (ExPeRT) Mars team within the Human and Robotic Exploration (HRE) directorate in the European Space Agency (ESA) is currently performing industrial studies on the LightShip Propulsive Tug mission concept and has recently reached the end of Phase A. The LightShip Propulsive Tug concept is designed to deliver a single Passenger Spacecraft or multiple smaller, low-cost spacecraft to a Mars orbit. Once the LightShip has released its passenger(s), it would then transfer to an operational service orbit where it will remain as a node that provides communications and navigation services as well as opportunity for networked science.

Up to twelve LightShip passengers are carried using a Generic Passenger Interface (GPI). This interface is designed to allow passenger spacecraft ranging from CubeSats to a main passenger of 3000 kg to be brought to Mars. The passengers can be deployed in a variety of orbits ranging from a low Martian orbit to areostationary, or even dropped off during the transfer to Mars.

The communication and navigation payload, MARCONI (Mars Communications and Navigation Infrastructure) is a planned service to route data between landing, surface and orbital Martian users and Earth, in both directions and provide real-time and near real-time navigation services to such users. 

In parallel four Phase 0 industrial studies “Low-Cost Mars Mission Platforms” have been performed in 2025, aiming at understanding the capabilities in Europe for small spacecraft platforms to fly to Mars.

This paper will present the mission concept and capabilities of ESA’s LightShip, the opportunities it will bring for small, low cost missions to Mars, the passenger classifications and constraints that have been studied, and discuss the results of the four parallel Phase 0 industrial studies.