By: Ewan Thomson

On July 17, 2024, NASA canceled bringing a rover to the moon to save time and money. NASA, or National Aeronautics and Space Administration makes spaceships and does space missions for research and science. This mission, called VIPER, was intended for a rover to investigate for water on the moons.
Now, instead of sending the rover to the moon, which they spent 450 million dollars on, they will send a mass simulator instead. The reason they did this was because of many delays and rises in costs. VIPER is the name of the rover, was supposed to be carried in is called the Griffin. A spaceship called the Griffin was supposed to take VIPER, also the name of the rover, to space.

The Griffin, and VIPER in the Griffin, was originally going to launch in late 2023, but this was delayed because NASA wanted more testing to be done on Griffin. The new date of launch turned to late 2024.

Eventually, NASA.gov says, “Then, because of manufacturing delays and other priorities, the date was delayed to September of 2025additional schedule and supply chain delays pushed VIPER’s readiness date to September 2025[.]”.

NASA has a lot of concerns about its future budget. It is unlikely that NASA will get and significant increase in the budget from Congress in the next few years.

The cost of VIPER has been 450 million dollars so far since the discovery of ice on the moon in 2009, but NASA hasn’t performed all of the necessary tests to make it eligible for takeoff. Not doing these tests saved at least 84 million dollars. NASA is planning on to disassembling the VIPER for its parts that can be used on other missions but is still open to suggestions from other companies.

All these complications caused NASA to decide that it was better to call off sending VIPER to the moon.

Nicola Fox, the associate administrator for NASA’s science mission directorate, says, “Decisions like we’ve been discussing today are extremely difficult to make” during a news conference. Nicola Fox, the associate administrator for NASA’s science mission directorate, said during a news conference.
“We don’t make them lightly. We put a lot of thought into the best way to move forward,” Fox said.

Even though VIPER is being called off, NASA will still launch Griffin. NASA believes that a demonstration of Griffin making a successful launch will be beneficial. A reason for this may be explained by nytimes.com saying “Dr. Kearns said Astrobotic was free to sell space on Griffin to other customers.” NASA plans on paying Astrobotic Technology of Pittsburgh 323 million dollars to launch Griffin. NASA will launch Griffin with a weight or “mass simulator” to make it more realistic.

In total, NASA plans on spending a total of around 800 million dollars on VIPER, but they still think that it is a better play not to test to or send VIPER to space.

Who: NASA
What: Cancelled sending a rover to the moon and partially wasted 800 million dollars. VIPER mission. A “mass simulator” will take place of the rover. NASA plans of disassembling the Rover and using the instruments on other missions. NASA is still planning on spending 323 million dollars on a demonstration on Griffin, a lander.
When: July 17, 2024.
Where: Polar sides of the moon. The Nasa Company. The spaceship.
Why:    “Decisions like we’ve been discussing today are extremely difficult to make,” “We don’t make them lightly. We put a lot of thought into the best way to move forward.” Not performing the tests in weather the rover would survive on its journey will save at least 84 million.

Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/17/science/nasa-viper-moon-rover-canceled.html
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-ends-viper-project-continues-moon-exploration/
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/viper/in-depth/

Image Credit by Kevin B