NASA announced Wednesday that it is ending the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) project. It was the second time in less than a decade that NASA canceled plans for a rover to explore the moon because of water ice, a decision that came six years after the cancellation of a similar mission, Resource Prospector.
The 430 kg (948 lb) rover was designed to fly to the moon’s south pole aboard Astrobotic’s Griffin lander, the second planned lunar mission for the Pittsburgh-based company. Astrobotics’ first mission, the smaller Peregrine lander, ended prematurely in January when a propulsion problem prevented it from reaching the Moon.
During a teleconference with the press, Joel Kearns, NASA’s deputy associate administrator for exploration in the Science Mission Directorate, pointed to the cost of the balloons as a big driving force behind VIPER’s cancellation.
“When we formalized the VIPER project, we told Congress that the budget for the project would be $433.5 million and that the landing would be in late 2023,” Kearns said. “We have already decided to reschedule the landing to 2024 so that we can have Astrobotic perform additional propulsion tests on the lander.
“When we made this decision, we updated the VIPER work plan and reset the budget to $505.4 million with a landing at the end of 2024. But our last estimate, which was done earlier this year, showed that because we were no longer planning to land VIPER at the end of 2024, but instead would have to do it for the 2025 science window that VIPER project costs were projected at $609.6 million.
Kearns said the 30 percent overrun of the original budget was too far and automatically triggered what he called a cancellation review held in June. In 2019, when VIPER was first announced, NASA put the initial estimate for the gold cart-sized rover at $250 million, with delivery to the moon in 2022.
In a May 2024 blog post, Dan Andrews, VIPER’s project manager, said that in April, the lander passed a System Test Readiness Check, allowing VIPER to move on to stress tests and environmental testing.
“These environmental tests are important because they force our rover to experience the conditions it will see during launch, landing and in the thermal environment of operations at the lunar south pole,” Andrews wrote in May. “Specifically, acoustic testing will simulate the harsh, vibrating ‘rock concert’ experience of launch, while thermo-vacuum testing will expose VIPER to the hottest and coldest temperatures it will see during the mission, all while operating in the vacuum of space. It’s a tough business, but we have to make sure we’re up to it.”
During his comments Wednesday, Kearns said that at this time, VIPER has not completed system-level environmental tests and that some of the ground systems needed to operate the rover on the Moon also have not been completed.
He said canceling VIPER would save NASA at least $84 million, “which is the cost of continuing to complete the path for the flight and ground systems and then operate a mission that cannot now take place in 2024.”
When pressed on why this decision was made when NASA held off on budget increases of similar or greater amounts and did not cancel programs, Kearns said that not only were they bound by congressional budget constraints, but that the estimates cited may not be the end. the story.
“One of the concerns we had was the immediate cost that we would have to take out of something else at NASA Science to prepare for the September 2025 landing, but the other concern we had was that the landing would not happen. in September 2025, and if it took place later than November, it would likely take place in 2026, which would likely require a similar amount of money to continue into 2026,” Kearns said.
A significant part of this timeline came from the fact that Kearns said the Griffin lander would not be ready until September 2025 at the earliest.
“We also took into account the fact that it would be at least possible that the availability of the Griffin launch module could be delayed until late September 2025. The Griffin lander itself would have to be able to launch by November 2025 or it would miss VIPER. science operations window for that 100-day post-landing mission,” Kearns said. “VIPER can only make its measurements under certain conditions at the South Pole, when there is a lot of sunlight available, which we call the South Pole summer, and also a way to communicate directly by radio back to Earth.”
“This is a challenge for any long-duration mission that goes to the South Pole that doesn’t use, say, nuclear power for heating and power,” Kearns added. “You have to be very careful how long you stay in the dark.
What happens now?
NASA will retain Astrobotic’s $323 million contract, which will allow Griffin Mission One to push forward toward a launch in 2025. Kearns said the lander will now fly to the moon with a mass simulator that will weigh about the same as VIPER.
He added that Astrobotic may look for additional commercial payloads for the lander, and the size of the mass simulator can be offset if necessary.
“At NASA, we decided because of the scope and the schedule and the cost, the fixed-price cost that we agreed with Astrobotic with the Griffin mission, that we’re not going to replace the other science instruments on Griffin because we feel that if we did, it could mean schedule delays and increased costs for the government,” Kearns said. “So now we’re targeting Griffin to get data from the successful landing, how their propulsion system is working.
Asked whether VIPER could transfer to another of NASA’s reserved lunar landers, such as the cargo version of Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lander, Nicola Fox, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said it could have a negative impact on the budget for another CLPS mission.
“It’s more about the cost risk and the threat to the rest of the NASA program,” Fox said.
She said NASA has notified appropriators in Congress of its decision and is awaiting their response.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Astrobotic said it plans to launch its Griffin lander in the third quarter of 2025. In April, the company announced it would launch its own shoebox-sized rover called the CubeRover in partnership with the company. , Mission Control, as part of Griffin Mission One.
The lander will also carry the LandCam-X payload on behalf of the European Space Agency and French startup Lunar Logistics Services. It is designed to “take pictures as it approaches the Moon to improve the accuracy and safety of future lunar landings.”
Astrobotic has not yet released a full list of its commercial customers.
