NASA ’s VIPER — shortsighted for the Volatiles inquire Polar Exploration Rover — sit tack together inside the cleanroom at the way ’s Johnson Space Center . NASA
NASA has harbinger it is scrap its program to send a rover to the lunation . The Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover , or VIPER , project was mean tosearch the moonlight ’s polar regions for water , but will now be hold over due to budget issue . Originally slat to set down on the moon in December 2022 , the undertaking had been delayed several times , and the most late update was that it would not be ready until September 2025 .
Rather than waiting even longer and spending more money , NASA has resolve to call it quits on the program due to increase price . The rover will now be disassembled so its instruments can be used in other moonshine foreign mission .
NASA’s VIPER — short for the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover — sits assembled inside the cleanroom at the agency’s Johnson Space Center.NASA
NASA accentuate that it was still committed to lunar exploration and that the newspaper clipping of this foreign mission was necessary for other mission to persist in . The wanderer was go under to be launch as part of a program called CLPS ( Commercial Lunar Payload Services ) in which the agency work with private companies to plunge Sun Myung Moon missions .
“ We are committed to studying and exploring the moon for the welfare of humanity through the CLPS syllabus , ” enounce Nicola Fox , associate decision maker of NASA ’s Science Mission Directorate , in astatement . “ The delegacy has an raiment of missions planned to see for ice and other resource on the moon over the next five years . Our path forward will make maximum use of goods and services of the engineering science and work that die into VIPER , while preserving vital fund to patronise our robust lunar portfolio . ”
Other missions in the CLPS program include Astrobotic ’s lunar lander , whichlanded on the Sun Myung Moon ’s surfaceearlier this year , and similar lander being developed by companies including Firefly Aerospace , Intuitive Machines , and Lockheed Martin . Astrobotic is also working on a lander called Griffin Mission One , which was originally mean to deliver VIPER to the moon ’s control surface , and will now fly without the bird of passage . NASA said that the contract bridge with Astrobotic will keep , and that the launch and landing of the mission will be an important trajectory test of the lander ’s capabilities .
As for the original intent of the rover to enquire piddle at the moon ’s south celestial pole , NASA says that work will now be done by future instruments that will be a part of crew missions such as the planned Artemis mission , which train to see cosmonaut on the synodic month ’s surface by 2026 .
