Nammo UK has been selected to supply the main engine for the European Space Agency’s Argonaut lunar lander, a key element of the NASA-led Artemis program that will return humans to the Moon in the early 2030s.
The announcement was made at ESA’s European Astronaut Center in Cologne, where senior representatives from ESA, Nammo, Thales Alenia Space, OHB System AG and Thales Alenia Space UK took part in a signing ceremony.
The Buckinghamshire-based company will provide its new RELIANCE dual-propellant engine – a 6kN throttleable rocket engine currently being developed at its Westcott Venture Park facility. RELIANCE will power Europe’s first lunar lander, supporting the Artemis mission planned for 2031 and enabling the delivery of food, water, scientific instruments, communications infrastructure and energy systems to the lunar surface.
Robert Selby, vice president of Nammo Space, said the contract was “a major step forward” for both the RELIANCE engine and European propulsion capability. “We are honored to be selected,” he said. “This is testament to the remarkable team we have and the UK’s growing role in space exploration.”
Dr. Paul Bate, CEO of the UK Space Agency, said the decision underlined the UK’s “long tradition and continued leadership” in space propulsion. “This is a significant achievement for Nammo UK and our expanding space sector,” he said. “The RELIANCE engine continues Westcott’s proud legacy of British rocket innovation and will support a wide range of future missions.”
Argonaut will operate autonomously and form a central pillar of Europe’s contribution to Artemis – the first human return to the lunar surface since Apollo 17 in 1972. The lander will serve as a logistics vehicle, transporting vital cargo to support long-term exploration and settlement.
The RELIANCE engine design is inspired by the historic engines of the Apollo program and uses a trunnion injector for precise landing control and hypergolic propellants for reliability. It also builds on Nammo UK’s successful LEROS engine family, used in missions such as NASA’s Juno spacecraft, Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lunar lander and Astroscale’s ADRAS-J debris removal demonstration, among others.
Nammo UK is part of the larger Norwegian aerospace and defense group Nammo, whose space division operates from locations in Westcott, Cheltenham, Raufoss (Norway) and Dublin. The company continues to qualify new propulsion systems for global space and launch vehicle markets.
