NASA issued a call to private companies that want to continue the project without government funding. NASA will focus on future lunar missions utilizing technologies and tools from VIPER
NASA has announced the termination of the VIPER rover project, citing increasing costs and launch delays. The project's tools will be reused in future lunar missions, including the upcoming PRIME-1 and Artemis missions, which will explore lunar resources and support astronaut missions.
After a comprehensive internal review, NASA announced on July 17 its intention to stop development of the VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover) project.
NASA cited the increased costs, delays in the launch date and the risks of further cost increases as reasons for stopping the mission. The rover was originally planned for launch in late 2023, but in 2022 NASA asked to delay the launch to late 2024 to provide more time for preliminary tests of the Astrobotic lander. Since then, additional schedule and supply chain delays have pushed VIPER's readiness date to September 2025, and its launch aboard Astrobotic's Griffin lander has also been pushed back to a similar time. Continuing the VIPER project would have resulted in increased costs that would threaten to cancel or disrupt further CLPS missions. NASA's message to Congress stated the agency's intention.
"We are committed to exploring and exploring the Moon for the benefit of humanity through the CLPS program," said Nicola Fox, NASA's science director in Washington. "The agency has an array of missions planned to look for ice and other resources on the moon over the next five years. Our way forward will make maximum use of technology and the work done on VIPER, while maintaining critical funds to support our variety of lunar missions."
NASA plans to disassemble and reuse VIPER tools and components in future lunar missions. Before dismantling it, NASA will try to interest US industry and international partners by Thursday, August 1, to use the existing VIPER rover system at no cost to the government.
Astrobotic will continue its Griffin Mission One under contract with NASA, with a goal of launching no earlier than fall 2025. The landing without VIPER will provide a flight demonstration of the Griffin lander and its engines.
NASA will continue to pursue alternative ways to achieve many of the VIPER objectives and verify the presence of ice at the Moon's south pole. A future CLPS mission – Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment-1 (PRIME-1) – scheduled to land at the lunar south pole in the fourth quarter of 2024, will search for water ice and perform a resource exploitation demonstration using a drill and a mass spectrometer to measure the volatile content of subsurface materials .
In addition, future tools as part of NASA's manned missions - for example, the Lunar Terrain Vehicle - will allow mobile observations of volatiles throughout the South Pole region, as well as access for astronauts to permanently shadowed areas of the Moon for sample return campaigns. The agency will also use replicas of three of the four VIPER vehicles for future lunar landings on separate flights.
The VIPER rover was designed to search for ice and other potential resources on the Moon – in support of NASA's commitment to lunar exploration and to help uncover some of our Solar System's greatest mysteries. Through NASA's lunar initiatives, including the manned Artemis missions and the CLPS program, NASA is exploring more of the Moon than ever before using highly skilled astronauts, advanced robotics, US commercial suppliers and international partners.
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