NASA will spend about $800 million to avoid sending a robotic rover to the moon.
The rover, known as the Volatile Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER, has already been built. The launch is still scheduled to take place late next year, but VIPER will not be on board.
The space agency announced Wednesday that it plans to cancel the mission and that it plans to dismantle VIPER, a wheeled vehicle about the size of a small car that was supposed to search for water ice in the shadows near the moon’s south pole. A non-functional “tabletop simulator” will take its place.
The reconnaissance was intended to provide insight into what lies in the eternally dark craters of the polar regions before NASA astronauts land there in the coming years. Delays with both the VIPER rover and the privately built spacecraft that was supposed to land the rover on the lunar surface have led to uncertainty about the mission’s timeline. Rising costs risk cuts or cancellations of other missions.
“Decisions like the ones we discussed today are extremely difficult to make,” said Nicola Fox, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, during a press conference. “We don’t do them lightly. We are very much considering the best way to move forward.”
The proposed cancellation of VIPER is the latest setback in NASA’s science efforts.
The cost of a mission to collect rocks and soil from Mars and bring them back to Earth for study has spiraled, prompting NASA to ask for new, cheaper ideas on how to accomplish the task. Europa Clipper, a robotic mission to explore a Jupiter moon with an ocean beneath the ice, may be delayed due to problems with some of its electronic components.
NASA missions often end up costing more and taking longer than planned, and the agency still sometimes goes ahead, delaying other missions. But since NASA is unlikely to receive significant budget increases from Congress in the coming years, agency officials decided it was better to cut their losses with VIPER.
By June, NASA had spent $450 million on VIPER, which is now fully assembled with science instruments installed, said Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for research in the Science Directorate. However, testing of the rover to ensure it will survive the shake of a rocket launch and the harsh conditions of space has not been completed.
The cancellation would save at least $84 million because NASA would no longer have to pay to complete the tests or operate the rover on the moon, Dr. Cairns said. Other missions will be able to achieve many of VIPER’s goals, though not as quickly, Dr. Fox said.
NASA plans to dismantle VIPER and use the instruments and other components on other missions. However, NASA has said it is willing to listen to proposals from US companies or international partners to use the VIPER system as is, as long as there is no additional cost to the federal government.
In addition to the cost of building the rover, NASA hired Astrobotic Technology of Pittsburgh to take VIPER to the Moon. The agency still plans to pay Astrobotic $323 million to continue with that mission.
Even without the rover and its science instruments, a successful demonstration by the lander, called Griffin, would still be valuable, Dr. Cairns said.
VIPER was originally scheduled to launch in late 2023. NASA then asked Astrobotic to perform additional tests on Griffin, pushing the launch date to later this year. But due to ongoing manufacturing supply chain disruptions following the Covid pandemic and other factors, the VIPER and Griffin would not be ready for release until September next year at the earliest.
Dr Fox said NASA was also concerned that the mission would not be ready even then, and further delays would further increase the cost. Dr. Kearns said NASA decided not to replace VIPER with other science payloads because those changes would require a renegotiation of the fixed-price contract with Astrobotic.
Astrobotic’s first lunar mission for NASA, sending a lander named Peregrine in January, failed soon after launch and never got close to the moon. Other lunar landers this year have been more successful, including one from another US company working for NASA, Intuitive Machines, which reached the lunar surface in February, although it flipped over.
Dr Kearns said Astrobotic was free to sell Griffin space to other customers.
“If they want to fly more commercial payloads, we can make our mass simulator smaller so that the total mass is the same,” he said.
Dr. Fox said NASA has notified congressional committees that decide NASA budgets of the impending cancellation. Congress could direct NASA to continue with VIPER, but that would require cuts to other lunar missions.
“This is a decision based on budget issues in a very tight budget environment,” Dr Fox said.
