NASA has canceled its plan to land a robotic rover on the Moon to search for ice and other potential resources, after spending $450 million.
The plan involved landing what is dubbed the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER, near the lunar South Pole, which scientists suspect may harbor ice.
It was planned for the mobile robot to spend 100 days scouting the area for ice deposits and producing a first-ever resource map, which NASA said was critical for its future Artemis missions to establish a long-term human presence on the Moon’s surface.
The VIPER was initially planned to be launched in late 2023 aboard a lander provided by Astrobotic Technology, but in 2022, NASA pushed the schedule back to late 2024 to provide more time for testing, the agency said. Since then, additional schedule and supply chain delays further pushed VIPER’s readiness date to September 2025.
In terms of costs, NASA said it has so far spent about $450 million on the program. Discontinuing VIPER is expected to save the agency at least $84 million in development and additional operational costs.
NASA officials stressed that the cancellation was due to a budgetary issue, not a technological one.
“First and most important, this is in no way a reflection on the quality of the work from the mission team that are working to build this rover,” said Nicola Fox, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “They have worked diligently, including through the pandemic, to be able to build this rover to look for water on the Moon.”
According to NASA, some instruments and components on VIPER might still make it to the Moon in other lunar robotic missions.
Prior to disassembly, the agency will wait until the end of July to see if any domestic industry and international partners want to use the existing VIPER rover system at their own expense.
Despite VIPER’s termination, NASA said it would pursue alternative methods to accomplish many of VIPER’s goals and determine whether there is ice at the lunar South Pole.
“The agency has an array of missions planned to look for ice and other resources on the Moon over the next five years,” Ms. Fox told reporters. “Our path forward will make maximum use of the technology and work that went into VIPER, while preserving critical funds to support our robust lunar portfolio.”
Astrobotic, a Pittsburgh-based company, still plans to fly its Griffin lunar lander by the end of 2025. The company launched its first robotic mission to the Moon in January, but the lander crashed into the Earth’s atmosphere and burned up.
