Zenith Ascent

About Zenith Ascent

Zenith Ascent is an Italian company developing the logistical backbone for the emerging lunar economy. The firm was founded by CEO Leonardo Bora and CTO Davide D'Ascanio. Their mission is to facilitate independent and self-sufficient space operations, from Earth's orbit to the Moon. The company is engineering technology that allows spacecraft, ranging from cubesats to larger satellites, to operate with autonomy in proximity to other space objects without direct ground control or reliance on yet-to-be-built infrastructure. This capability is aimed at both the current commercial space market and future exploration, including in-orbit services and the logistics required for a lunar economy. Zenith Ascent's flagship project is the Zenith 1.0, positioned as Europe's first private lunar lander. It is being developed with a lean, modular, and payload-agnostic architecture. A key design feature is the decoupling of payloads from the lander, a strategy intended to enable faster integration, scalable operations, and potential reusability. The infrastructure is planned to support a decade of lunar activities, encompassing scientific missions, technology demonstrations, commercial operations, and logistics for future lunar bases.