NASA\u2019s VIPER is designed to search for water ice around the Moon\u2019s south pole. But instead of exploring the lunar terrain, the fully assembled four-wheeled robot is in storage at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. After canceling its VIPER mission last year, NASA is still searching for alternatives to launch its lunar rover, and the agency just took another step backward in making it happen.<\/p>\n
NASA canceled a solicitation for partnership proposals<\/a> it had sent out earlier this year, calling on the private sector to take over its VIPER mission. This week, the agency announced<\/a>\u00a0it would explore alternative options to deliver its lunar rover to the Moon. \u201cWe appreciate the efforts of those who proposed to the Lunar Volatiles Science Partnership Announcement for Partnership Proposals call,\u201d Nicky Fox, associate administrator of NASA\u2019s Science Mission Directorate, said in a statement. \u201cWe look forward to accomplishing future volatiles science with VIPER as we continue NASA\u2019s Moon to Mars exploration efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n VIPER<\/a>, or Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, was originally scheduled to launch in 2023. The launch date was first pushed back to 2024 and later to 2025 due to additional schedule and supply chain delays. In July 2024, the space agency decided to cancel the mission altogether<\/a>, stating that it threatens to disrupt other commercial payload missions to the Moon.<\/p>\n At first, NASA\u2019s plan was to disassemble the VIPER rover and use its parts for future missions. The decision, however, sparked outrage from the science community over the loss of the lunar explorer. In response, NASA abruptly put together a call for the private sector to take over its robot and send it to the Moon. Space startups, such as Intuitive Machines, stepped up to put together a plan to respond to NASA\u2019s request for information. It\u2019s unclear why NASA has reversed earlier decision to pursue a private partnership to send VIPER to the Moon.<\/p>\n NASA has already spent $450 million developing its VIPER mission, and the agency declared that it wouldn\u2019t spend any more money on getting the rover to land on the lunar surface. Without the help of the private sector, NASA\u2019s alternatives for VIPER, at no additional cost from its own pocket, seem rather limited. \u201cThe agency will announce a new strategy for VIPER in the future,\u201d NASA wrote in its statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASA\u2019s VIPER is designed to search for water ice around the Moon\u2019s south pole. But instead of exploring…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3844],"tags":[874,70,413,7646,16,15,41958],"class_list":{"0":"post-87971","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-nasa","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-space","11":"tag-the-moon","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-viper"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114479172511924420","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}