By: Vivian Tang

On July 17, NASA announced that they were canceling the VIPERS mission to the moon. NASA decided to cancel this mission since NASA usually ends up costing more on their missions, taking longer than intended, and their budgets aren’t increasing, so it was better for them to cut their losses with VIPER.

VIPER, also called Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, was already built. The launch was still planned for next year, but not using VIPER.

According to Nasawatch, VIPER was to be a groundbreaking American project and the first NASA mission to characterize the origin and distribution of water ice on and below the surface of the Moon. It was a key step in enabling human exploration and addressing high-priority science objectives identified in Planetary Science and Astrobiology.

VIPER cost nearly 450 million USD to create. Now, they are disassembling its parts, a wheeled vehicle in a size similar to a small car. Instead, a nonfunctional ‘mass simulator’ will take its place.

Using the disassembled parts of VIPER, NASA is planning to use those components on other missions in order not to waste them, as VIPER was indeed very expensive to build.

Although NASA canceled the VIPER mission, they are still willing to listen to suggestions from other companies as long as there is no additional cost to the government.

Joel Kurns was the deputy associate administrator for exploration in the science directorate.

Dr. Kearns said that “the cancellation of VIPER would at least save 84 million, as NASA would no longer need to pay to complete the tests or to operate the rover on the moon. Even without the rover and its scientific instruments, a successful demonstration of the lander, Griffin, would still be valuable.”

Nicola Fox is the associate administrator for NASA’s science mission directorate.

According to Dr. Fox, the other missions will also be able to achieve many of VIPER’s goals, just not as quickly.

VIPER was originally planned to be launched in late 2023, but because of lingering disruptions as a result of the pandemic and other factors, VIPER wouldn’t have been ready for launch until September next year at the earliest.

Dr. Fox also stated that NASA was still worried that VIPER wouldn’t be ready for launch even then.

“It is a decision based on budgetary concerns in a very constrained budget environment,” Fox said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/17/science/nasa-viper-moon-rover-canceled.html
https://nasawatch.com/artemis/an-open-letter-to-congress-opposing-viper-cancellation-that-you-can-sign/#:~:text=VIPER%20was%20to%20be%20a,the%20Planetary%20Science%20and%20Astrobiology

Image Credit by Blue Arauz