At the 2025 Paris Air Show, Monaco-based Venturi Space, led by entrepreneur Gildo Pastor, revealed its ambitious new lunar rover concept Mona Luna. This innovative vehicle, slated for a 2030 mission to the Moon’s South Pole, signifies Europe’s most significant stride yet in autonomous lunar mobility.
Engineered for extreme lunar environments
Measuring 2.5m by 1.64m and weighing 750kg, Mona Luna is designed as a lunar “ATV,” built to tackle the Moon’s steep slopes and soft regolith, common near the lunar poles. It’s engineered to withstand the Moon’s extreme temperature swings, from a frigid –130°C to a scorching +120°C. European-developed thermal systems and Monaco-produced battery packs ensure it can survive multiple lunar nights.
Power, performance, and puncture-proof wheels
Powered by electric motors and recharged via solar panels, Mona Luna uses three high-performance batteries for autonomous traversal at theoretical speeds up to 20 km/h on ideal terrain. A key innovation is its “Hyper-Deformable” wheels, designed in Switzerland. These puncture-proof wheels are built to perform exceptionally off-road while enduring radiation, vacuum, and extreme cold.
A fully european endeavor
Unlike Venturi Space’s previous rovers, Flip and Flex, which relied on US partnerships, Mona Luna is a completely European creation. Assembly, avionics, ground links, and acceptance testing will all take place at Venturi Space France in Toulouse. Components are manufactured across Monaco, Switzerland, and France, with Venturi reportedly establishing a “technology firewall” to maintain independence from US operations.
Versatility and future vision
Mona Luna is designed to launch on Europe’s Ariane 6.4 rocket and land with the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Argonaut lunar lander. Equipped with a robotic arm, it can deploy scientific payloads, carry experiment modules, and even assist stranded astronauts in emergencies, capabilities supported by French CNES feasibility studies.
Venturi Space envisions Mona Luna serving diverse purposes, from institutional missions for ESA and CNES to commercial ventures like delivery services, promotional expeditions, and supporting in-situ resource utilization, such as helium-3 mining. This multifaceted approach is underpinned by a sustainable business model, mirroring terrestrial electric mobility strategies to ensure long-term economic viability.
Mona Luna fills a crucial gap in European lunar capability, as no heavy rover was previously in the pipeline despite ESA’s robust launch and landing infrastructure. Venturi Space is actively seeking funding approval at ESA’s ministerial meeting in late 2025 and exploring an ESA-backed public-private partnership, similar to NASA’s Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) model.
Building on this lunar experience, Venturi Space is already developing a Mars rover focused on autonomous operation, subsurface water detection, and in-situ resource processing to convert water into oxygen and methane propellant.
Europe’s astronautical workhorse
Mona Luna is more than a lunar vehicle; it represents Europe’s leap toward space autonomy, showcasing indigenous engineering across design, propulsion, and energy systems. Its modular design promotes a “rover-as-a-service” concept for science, industry, and even tourism. In the coming years, Mona Luna could become Europe’s first homegrown astronautical workhorse, ushering in a new era of autonomous, commercially savvy, and strategically sovereign space exploration.
