NASA has spent $450 million designing and constructing a first-of-its-kind robotic to drive into eternally darkish craters on the Moon’s south pole, however the company introduced Wednesday it’ll cancel the rover resulting from delays and value overruns.
“NASA intends to discontinue the VIPER mission,” mentioned Nicky Fox, head of the company’s science mission directorate. “Selections like this are by no means simple, and we haven’t made this one, in any method, frivolously. On this case, the projected remaining bills for VIPER would have resulted in both having to cancel or disrupt many different missions in our Industrial Lunar Payload Providers (CLPS) line.”
NASA has terminated science missions after growth delays and value overruns earlier than, nevertheless it’s uncommon to cancel a mission with a spacecraft that’s already constructed.
The Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) mission was alleged to be a robotic scout for NASA’s Artemis program, which goals to return astronauts to the lunar floor within the subsequent few years. VIPER was initially deliberate to launch in late 2023 and was slated to fly to the Moon aboard a business lander supplied by Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic, which gained a contract from NASA in 2020 to ship the VIPER rover to the lunar floor. Astrobotic is one among 14 corporations within the pool of contractors for NASA’s CLPS program, with the aim of transporting government-sponsored science payloads to the Moon.
However VIPER has been delayed a minimum of two years—the newest schedule projected a launch in September 2025—inflicting its price to develop from $433 million to greater than $609 million. The ballooning prices robotically triggered a NASA assessment to find out whether or not to proceed with the mission or cancel it. In the end, officers mentioned they decided NASA could not pay the additional prices for VIPER with out affecting different Moon missions.
“Subsequently, we’ve made the choice to forego this specific mission, the VIPER mission, so as to have the ability to maintain the complete program,” Fox mentioned.
“We’re upset,” mentioned John Thornton, CEO of Astrobotic. “It is definitely tough information… VIPER has been an incredible workforce to work with, and we’re upset we can’t get the possibility to fly them to the Moon.”
NASA mentioned it’ll think about “expressions of curiosity” submitted by US trade and worldwide companions by August 1 to be used of the present VIPER rover for gratis to the federal government. If NASA cannot discover anybody to take over VIPER who will pay to get it to the Moon, the company plans to disassemble the rover and harvest devices and parts for future lunar missions.
Scientists had been dismayed by VIPER’s cancellation.
“It is absurd, to be sincere with you,” mentioned Clive Neal, a planetary geologist on the College of Notre Dame. “It made no sense to me by way of the economics. You’re canceling a mission that’s full, constructed, able to go. It is in the course of testing.”
“This can be a dangerous mistake,” wrote Phil Metzger, a planetary physicist on the College of Central Florida, in a submit on X. “This was the premier mission to measure lateral and vertical variations of lunar ice within the soil. It might have been revolutionary. Different missions don’t exchange what’s misplaced right here.”
Constructed with nowhere to go
Engineers at NASA’s Johnson Area Heart in Houston completed assembling the VIPER rover final month, and managers gave approval to place the craft by environmental testing to verify VIPER may face up to the acoustics and vibrations of launch and the intense temperature swings it might encounter in area.
As a substitute, NASA has canceled the mission after spending $450 million to get it so far. “This can be a very powerful resolution, however it’s a resolution based mostly on budgetary considerations in a really constrained price range setting,” Fox advised reporters Wednesday.
VIPER is concerning the dimension of a golf cart, with 4 wheels, headlights, a drill, and three science devices to seek for water ice in depressions close to the Moon’s south pole which have been shaded from daylight for billions of years. This has allowed these so-called completely shadowed areas to develop into chilly traps, permitting water ice to build up at or close to the floor, the place it could possibly be accessible for future astronauts to make use of as ingesting water or an oxygen supply or to transform into electrical energy and rocket gasoline.
However first, scientists have to know precisely the place the water is positioned and the way simple it’s to succeed in. VIPER was alleged to be the subsequent step in mapping assets on the Moon, offering floor fact measurements to corroborate distant sensing knowledge from satellites in lunar orbit.
However late components deliveries delayed development of the VIPER rover, and in 2022, NASA ordered further testing of Astrobotic’s Griffin lunar lander to enhance the probabilities of a profitable touchdown with VIPER. This delayed VIPER’s launch from late 2023 till late 2024, and initially of this 12 months, extra provide chain points with the VIPER rover and the Griffin lander pushed again the launch till September 2025.
This most up-to-date delay raised the projected price of VIPER greater than 30 p.c over the unique price of the mission, prompting a NASA termination assessment. Whereas the rover is now totally assembled, NASA nonetheless wanted to place it by a prolonged collection of exams, full growth of the bottom methods to manage VIPER on the Moon, and ship the craft to Astrobotic for integration onto the Griffin lander.
The remaining work to finish VIPER and function it for 100 days on the lunar floor would have price round $84 million, in line with Kearns.
