NASA Cancels Ice Hunting VIPER Moon Rover Wasting $450 MILLION, Space Race Over?

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VIPER Rover: The VIPER rover, short for Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, was a robotic lunar mission developed by NASA to explore the south pole of the moon. The primary objective of VIPER was to search for water ice in the permanently shadowed regions near the lunar south pole. It was designed to be sent to the moon on a commercial lander called Griffin from Astrobotic Technology.

Reasons for Cancellation: NASA decided to cancel the VIPER mission due to budget concerns. The cancellation was primarily driven by significant development delays and cost overruns that led to a substantial increase in the project’s estimated costs. The initial cost estimate for VIPER in 2021 was $433.5 million, but by the time of cancellation, the estimated cost had risen to $609.6 million, representing a more than 30% increase.

Joel Kearns, NASA’s deputy associate administrator for exploration, highlighted that supply chain issues and delays in key component deliveries, some dating back to the pandemic period, were major contributors to the project’s setbacks. These delays affected the construction timeline of VIPER, leading to incremental delays that were challenging to manage effectively.

Despite having completed assembly and starting environmental testing, NASA determined that continuing with VIPER would require significant additional resources and could potentially impact other missions within its Commercial Lunar Payload Services line. Canceling VIPER at this stage was projected to save NASA a minimum of $84 million, with potential further savings if launch delays were avoided.

While VIPER’s cancellation is a loss for NASA’s lunar exploration plans, the agency aims to repurpose the rover’s scientific instruments and components for future moon missions. Additionally, NASA will consider proposals from American companies and international partners interested in flying VIPER independently at no cost to the government.