There NASA designed and built an innovative rover to explore craters eternally dark areas of the Moon’s south pole. But, after spending a good 450 million dollars and due to delays and budget overruns, the space agency decided to cancel the mission.
A difficult decision
“NASA Plans to Abort VIPER Mission,” announced Nicky Fox, head of the agency’s science mission directorate. This decision was made with great difficulty and not lightly. The remaining expenditures for VIPER would have resulted in the cancellation or delay of many other missions in the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.
The VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover) rover was supposed to be a key component of NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the Moon in the coming years. The rover, already completed, was supposed to launch in 2025 aboard a commercial lander provided by Astrobotic, one of 14 companies involved in the CLPS program.
A NASA rover remains on Earth: rising costs and delays
The costs of the VIPER mission have increased by $433 million to over $609 milliondelaying the launch by at least two years. This increase in costs led NASA to review the project and, ultimately, to decide not to proceed in order to avoid further compromising other lunar missions.
Astrobotic CEO John Thornton expressed disappointment with NASA’s decision. However, the space agency said it would consider “expressions of interest” from U.S. industry and international partners to use the VIPER rover if they could cover the costs of getting it to the Moon.
Impact on the scientific community
The cancellation of the VIPER mission has left many scientists perplexed. Clive Neal, a planetary geologist at the University of Notre Dame, called the decision “absurd,” emphasizing the importance of the rover for mapping lunar resources.
The golf cart-sized rover was designed to search for water ice in the Moon’s permanently shadowed regions, where extremely low temperatures have allowed ice to accumulate for billions of years. This data would be critical for future human missions to the Moon.
An uncertain future
Despite the cancellation of the VIPER mission, NASA continues to work with Astrobotic, which plans to use the Griffin lander for other missions. Thornton mentioned the possibility of implementing the LunaGrid program, which involves using vertical solar arrays to generate electricity on the Moon, as a possible future project.
Can NASA find a partner to take VIPER to the Moon? Tell us your opinion in the comments!
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