European Service Module-4 with its shields up

European engineers securing a shield panel around ESA's fourth European Service Module at prime contractor Airbus' site in Bremen, Germany, in early October 2025.

Now fully assembled, the module will soon leave the Airbus cleanroom and set sail across the Atlantic Ocean to NASA's Kennedy Space Center, where it will be connected to the crew module and its distinctive European-built ' X-wing' solar arrays to form the complete Orion spacecraft for the Artemis IV mission.

Artemis IV will also bring ESA’s Lunar I-Hab habitation module to lunar orbit, where it will join NASA’s habitation and propulsion modules to form the international Gateway station, humankind’s next outpost around the Moon.

The European Service Module is a truly collaborative endeavour: the joint effort of engineers across more than 20 companies and 10 different European countries, working together to go forward to the Moon.