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The main aspect of this study is to investigate the feasibility of the mission concept and the demonstration of the economic viability of a commercial payload delivery service to the Moon, as well as demonstrating the production of water/or oxygen with materials from the Moon. The study considered a payload delivery service that would be an end-to end service from Earth to a targeted location on the Moon, launched not later than 2025.

The study and exploitation of In Situ Resource Utilisation (ISRU) technologies (with an initial focus on the Moon) are stimulating an increasing interest in the international community, both at Agency and industry levels, in view of and in preparation for future crewed exploration missions and in terms of scientific and societal long-term benefits.

The ISRU-DM mission aims to perform the first demonstration of ISRU on the Moon, via the production of water or oxygen from raw lunar material (i.e. regolith, ice etc.) At Agency-level a phase-0 level study was also performed to understand the technical and programmatic feasibility of undertaking the ISRU-DM mission via the provision of commercial services from industry.

Proof of Mars Hopper Concept Technologies was an eight-month study funded by ESA’s General Studies Programme from ECSAT in Harwell. The study has focussed on increasing the TRL of key technologies required for the Mars Hopper concept, which were:
- In Situ Resource Utilisation (ISRU) subsystem to collect and store CO2 from the atmosphere and deliver it to the propulsion system. Locally generated propellant doe snot require transportation to Mars providing a huge mass saving