ispace announced a memorandum of understanding with Nammo’s U.K. business on November 12, 2026, covering long-term propulsion procurement and production planning. The agreement establishes a framework for exploring bulk purchasing and coordinated manufacturing arrangements for spacecraft propulsion hardware.
The relationship is tied to ispace’s ULTRA lunar lander. ispace said it selected Nammo’s LEROS 4 and LEROS 2b engines for integration into the lander and had also procured attitude-control thrusters. The memorandum includes ispace’s European and U.S. entities.
Main engines and attitude-control thrusters have different jobs. A main engine changes the spacecraft’s speed for major maneuvers. Attitude-control thrusters adjust orientation, helping point the vehicle and its thrust in the intended direction. A lunar lander uses these functions during its approach and descent as part of a controlled sequence of maneuvers.
The ULTRA design is currently under development, with its first use planned for Mission 3 in 2028. ispace says the same lander design will be used for Mission 4 and later missions. The Mission 3 lander is supported by a Small Business Innovation Research grant administered by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
ULTRA combines the Japanese and U.S. lander development lines that had previously proceeded as Series 3 and APEX 1.0. ispace announced that integration on March 27, 2026. A common design provides a shared spacecraft platform around which propulsion purchasing and subsequent production can be organized.
The March update also explained the engine change. ispace said delays in demonstrating the planned VoidRunner engine’s required performance led it to select an alternative with lunar flight experience. The company paired that change with the move to ULTRA and revised its mission sequence, placing the next Japanese-led landing mission in 2028 and its first U.S.-led mission in 2030.
Nammo’s published specifications identify the LEROS 2b as a bipropellant chemical engine with nominal thrust of 420 newtons. Bipropellant engines use separate fuel and oxidizer supplies. The manufacturer lists long-duration burns and pulsed operation among the engine’s operating modes.
Nammo states that the engine performed orbit-raising and lunar-orbit-insertion maneuvers on the Beresheet mission in 2019. Those burns changed the spacecraft’s orbit and reduced its speed for capture by lunar gravity. The manufacturer hot-fire tests its apogee engines at the U.K. National Space Propulsion Test Facility in Westcott and lists typical LEROS 2b delivery times of 12 to 18 months.
The LEROS 4 family has also flown on a lunar landing mission. Nammo supplied the LEROS 4-ET main engine used by Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander, which reached the Moon’s surface on March 2, 2025. The extended-thrust version was developed following Firefly’s approach to Nammo in 2021.
On that mission, the engine supported transfer toward the Moon, insertion into lunar orbit, and the descent sequence. Nammo describes a descent-orbit-insertion burn of approximately 550 seconds. Closer to the surface, the main engine shut down and smaller Firefly engines completed the landing as the spacecraft’s remaining mass decreased.
The Blue Ghost experience describes one application of the engine family; the ispace announcement concerns its own selected hardware and lander integration. The procurement memorandum addresses the commercial planning around that equipment, including how demand across missions could be grouped and production coordinated.
ispace and Nammo now plan to examine longer-term purchasing arrangements within that framework. The work connects engine selection for ULTRA with the production schedules and procurement terms for later spacecraft.
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