FOUR TECHNOLOGY AREAS COVERING THE LUNAR RESOURCE VALUE CHAIN

Leonardo has launched ‘Enabling Sustainable Space Operations: Advancing Lunar Resource Exploration, Extraction and Utilization’, a new challenge under its Solvers Wanted programme focused on the development of technologies for the exploration and utilisation of resources available on the Moon and other planetary bodies. The company states that future space exploration architectures will increasingly involve long-duration missions and a sustained human presence on the Moon, and that the ability to use locally available resources will be crucial to reducing reliance on supplies from Earth.

The challenge covers four technology areas. Resource Identification and Mapping seeks technologies for identifying, characterising and mapping lunar and planetary resources, including advanced sensing and prospecting solutions, geophysical surveys and subsurface analysis systems. Resource Extraction and Mining seeks autonomous systems for extracting and collecting locally available resources, with particular focus on deep-drilling and excavation technologies and scalable solutions for recovering water and raw materials that can be used to produce oxygen, hydrogen and other resources. Resource Processing covers technologies for converting extracted resources into usable products and materials, including regolith treatment, water and oxygen production, thermal management and resource storage. Logistics and Mobility Solutions covers robotic and autonomous systems for transporting, handling and distributing materials between extraction, processing, storage and utilisation sites.

WHAT SOLVERS WANTED IS

Solvers Wanted is Leonardo’s open innovation and technology scouting platform, launched in 2021 and operating at solverswanted.leonardo.com. It works on a demand-driven basis: Leonardo identifies internal technology and innovation needs through a ‘Map of Needs’ exercise, then publishes challenges against those needs to an external ecosystem of start-ups, scale-ups, innovative SMEs, universities, research centres and laboratories. Simone Ungaro, Leonardo’s Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer, has described the approach as starting from the point of view of the industry to understand the needs, then moving towards the system of companies, research centres and universities to explore possible solutions.

The platform hosts several challenge formats. Challenges have historically been divided between ‘Accelerate’, addressing low Technology Readiness Level future technologies, and ‘Boost Leonardo Solutions’, supporting product development at medium-to-high TRL. Past challenges have covered brain-computer interfaces and structural batteries in 2022, bio-inspired sensor technology in 2024, materials adhesion, and — most directly relevant to the new call — ‘New perspectives for space inspection’ in 2025, whose scope already included robotics for extracting resources from celestial bodies and space infrastructure on the Moon and Mars. Winners have typically received funding in the range of €10,000 to €30,000 alongside collaboration contracts, and gain entry to the ‘Leonardo Team for Innovation’ network, which permits use of the network’s mark alongside their own. Against that history, the €50,000 per project offered under the new lunar resources challenge sits at the upper end of the platform’s range.

TERMS AND TIMELINE

The initiative is open to start-ups, innovative SMEs, universities and research centres developing autonomous systems to identify, extract, process, store and transport resources directly in space. Leonardo will select multiple projects, providing each with funding of up to €50,000 and a place on a 12-to-18-month co-development programme with Leonardo Space teams. Participants will work with the Payloads, Equipment and Robotics Business Unit and other Leonardo specialists to accelerate maturation of their solutions, and selected teams will be able to present their technologies through dedicated technical sessions and demonstrations. Depending on results achieved and Leonardo’s strategic priorities, projects may be considered for subsequent development, validation and integration activities. Applications are accepted from 27 July to 30 September 2026, with selected projects to be announced in October 2026.