NASA cancels lunar rover mission – Sky & Telescope

He VolatilesinInvestigating the Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) It was originally designed to search for ice and other resources in the cold, dark and harsh conditions that exist in the south polar region The rover would travel to and land on the lunar surface aboard the Griffin lander, developed by aerospace company Astrobotic as part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Servicing Program. The team planned to travel about 12 miles (20 kilometers) over the lunar surface for 100 days, entering and exiting permanently shadowed regions.

But it won't be doing any of those things now. At a press conference on Wednesday, July 17, NASA announced that it was cancelling its participation in the otherwise commercial mission.

NASA Headquarters’ Joel Hearns praises VIPER team members for their persistence and ingenuity in building the science instruments and most of the vehicle, but notes that the rover, originally scheduled for launch in late 2023, was plagued by supply chain issues. “There were delays over and over again for several key components,” he adds. Those delays, in turn, delayed assembly, integration and testing of the golf-cart-sized vehicle.

Though NASA negotiated with Astrobotic to push the launch back to no earlier than November 2024, similar issues nearly forced a delay of another year, to September 2025. (That timing is partly constrained by VIPER itself, which needs to operate during the lunar south polar “summer,” when more sunlight is available.) That could have set off a chain reaction of delays for subsequent commercial missions, says Nicola Fox, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate.

Cost overruns were another major reason for the cancellation. Let’s run through the numbers: The original cost had been $433.5 million, with launch planned for 2023. That budget rose to $505.5 million to make up for the delay to 2024. A 2025 landing would have meant another budget increase to $609.6 million. About $450 million has already been spent, and the rover itself is fully assembled. But there was also the risk of unknown future costs, such as further delays or necessary repairs if testing revealed problems, as is often the case.

“We are in a very constrained science budget environment at NASA,” Hearns said. “In the current fiscal year, NASA’s science budget was $1 billion less than Congress had requested…and we are getting indications that the environment will be constrained in the next fiscal year as well.”

However, VIPER may have a second life. NASA is opening up the use of VIPER, including its scientific instruments and/or the vehicle itself, to U.S. industry and international partners. Press release outlines where to submit expressions of interest, which are due by Aug. 1. Meanwhile, the Griffin lander, which will carry several private payloads, is scheduled to launch to the Moon in the fall of 2025. Before that, Firefly Aerospace and Intuitive Machines are planning launches later this year.