After an extensive internal investigation, NASA announced on Wednesday that it will halt development of its VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover) project.
NASA cited cost increases, launch date delays, and risks of future cost growth as reasons for terminating the mission. The rover was originally scheduled to launch in late 2023, but in 2022 NASA requested a launch delay to late 2024 to allow more time for preflight testing of the Astrobotic lander. Since then, additional schedule and supply chain delays have pushed VIPER’s readiness date to September 2025, and separately, the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) launch aboard Astrobotic’s Griffin lander has also been delayed to a similar date. Continuing VIPER would result in higher costs that risk canceling or disrupting other CLPS missions. NASA has notified Congress of the agency’s intent.
“We are committed to studying and exploring the Moon for the benefit of humanity through the CLPS program,” said Nicola Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters in Washington. “The agency has a series of missions planned over the next five years to search for ice and other resources on the Moon. Our path forward will maximize the technology and work put into VIPER, while maintaining critical funding to support our robust lunar portfolio.”
NASA plans to disassemble VIPER’s instruments and components and reuse them for future lunar missions. Prior to disassembly, NASA will consider expressions of interest from U.S. industry and international partners no later than Thursday, August 1, for use of the existing VIPER rover system at no cost to the government. Interested parties should contact [email protected] after 10:00 a.m. EDT on Thursday, July 18. The project will be closed in an orderly fashion through the spring of 2025.
Astrobotic will continue its Griffin Mission One under contract with NASA, working toward a launch no earlier than fall 2025. The landing without VIPER will provide a flight demonstration of the Griffin lander and its engines.
NASA will pursue alternative methods to accomplish many of VIPER’s goals and verify the presence of ice at the lunar south pole. A future CLPS delivery – The Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment-1 (PRIME-1) – expected to land at the South Pole in the fourth quarter of 2024 – will search for water ice and conduct a resource utilization demonstration using a drill and a mass spectrometer to measure the volatile content of subsurface material.
In addition, future instruments as part of NASA’s manned missions—for example, the Lunar Terrain Vehicle—will enable mobile observations of volatiles in the south polar region, and will give astronauts access to the moon’s permanently shadowed regions for special sample return campaigns. The agency will also deploy copies of three of VIPER’s four instruments for future lunar landings on separate flights.
The VIPER rover is designed to search Earth’s moon for ice and other potential resources – supporting NASA’s commitment to study the moon and help solve some of the solar system’s greatest mysteries. Through NASA’s lunar initiatives, including the human Artemis and CLPS missions, NASA is exploring more of the moon than ever before with the help of highly trained astronauts, advanced robotics, U.S. commercial providers, and international partners.
For more information about VIPER, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/viper
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Karen Fox / Erin Morton
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600 / 202-805-9393
[email protected] / [email protected]