By: Lily Han

3… 2… 1… Blastoff! Or at least that was the original plan.

NASA spent 450 million dollars building a moon rover, called VIPER. VIPER’s mission was to search the moon for ice and other useful resources to help future astronauts, but NASA decided to cancel it on Wednesday, July 17th because of delays and accelerating costs. With a top speed of 0.45 mph, the VIPER was planned to land in the “Nobile Region of Moon’s South Pole”. Onboard this 992 pound golf cart, it was planned to contain “3 spectrometers and a 3.28 foot (1-meter) drill”. This mission was supposed to take 100 Earth days or 3 lunar day and night cycles. VIPER would have set history as the “first rover with headlights” and would have helped future teams find good landing sites with suitable resources, part of NASA’s plan to study the moon.

The VIPER rover was completely finished and ready to launch in early 2024, but the mission was delayed due to Covid and the need for more testing of the lander, Griffin. After all the delays, the pair would not be ready for takeoff until September of 2025–19 months after the initial launch date. NASA management predicts this delay will greatly inflate costs and cause delay for CLPS missions, an initiative that allows NASA to send scientific materials to the moon efficiently.

As NASA doesn’t expect to receive an increased budget from congress any time soon, they decided their best choice was to cut project Viper to save an estimated 84 million dollars. Recently, NASA’s budget has decreased. They sought 27.2 billion dollars from Congress last year but only received 24.875 billion. This was 2 percent less than the previous year and 8.5 percent less than what NASA hoped for. NASA is now looking for cheaper and more efficient ideas.

While Viper’s mission came to an end, Fox reports the Griffin will still be flown by Astrobotic, a company that delivers loads to the lunar surface for NASA and other companies, and the company will also bring the three scientific instruments, parts of VIPER that detect useful resources, to the moon. Viper will be disassembled, and its components will be recycled for future usage.

Image Credit by Pixabay