NASA announced Wednesday that overloads and delays had forced it to cancel a lunar rover assignment it had already spent $450 million developing, marking a setback for the lunar exploration program. ‘agency.
The Volatile Research Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) aimed to explore the lunar south pole for ice and other resources, paving the way for manned missions planned by U. S. astronauts as part of the Artemis program later this decade.
“Decisions like this are easy,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.
“But in this case, the rest of the planned spending for VIPER would have resulted in the cancellation or interruption of many missions. “
The rover, which NASA expected to venture into the moon’s permanently shadowed craters where ice reserves have lasted billions of years, was originally scheduled to launch in 2023.
But in 2022, the U. S. space company requested a postponement of the launch until the end of 2024 to allow more time for pre-flight testing of the Griffin lander, through Pittsburgh-based company Astrobotic, as part of the new commercial Lunar Payload Services program. (CLPS), a public-private corporate program.
The rover’s launch preparation date was postponed until September 2025, when the cargo was expected to raise $609. 6 million.
Joel Kearns, deputy administrator for exploration at NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, added that Congress had been informed of the agency’s decision.
The “fully assembled” rover had not yet undergone safe testing that would certify that it could prepare for launch, fly in the vacuum of space and suffer from high temperatures, Kearns said.
But it is still imaginable that the rover could be reused on long-duration missions, in whole or in part, if NASA can reach a suitable agreement with commercial partners who may be interested, he said.
Astrobotic, which unveiled the Peregrine lander that failed to reach the moon in January, is still on track to launch it by the end of 2025, but will now bring a “mass simulator” or a heavyweight from a NASA rover.
Kearns insisted that despite the setback, the United States was not left behind in its space rivalry with China, which in June managed to recover the first samples from the far side of the Moon.
“We congratulate China’s national area enterprise on the Chang’e-6 mission, which has been a great success,” he said.
But he added that by partnering with area industry under the CLPS program, “we will have a stronger science program and a stronger lunar landing capability in the United States. “
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