At the IAC in Antalya, Italy’s Leonardo and its joint venture Telespazio (67% Leonardo, 33% Thales) signed a memorandum of understanding with Japan’s ispace and its European subsidiary. The deal widens a Telespazio–ispace cooperation that began in 2025 and brings in Leonardo’s Space Division, with a focus on lunar communications, positioning, navigation and timing, and transport to lunar orbit. The first target is ESA’s Moonlight network, led industrially by Telespazio: the partners will study using ispace’s orbital transfer vehicle to deliver Moonlight satellites into lunar orbit. In a separate deal, Leonardo renewed its work with Sweden’s Unibap to fly an upgraded iX20 onboard computer in its Space Guardian Earth-observation constellation. Financial terms were not disclosed. Our take: Moonlight is Europe’s ticket to the lunar economy, and Italy wants to own both the network and the ride.