‘A dark day for lunar science:’ Scientists shocked as NASA cancels VIPER moon rover

It’s a classic “hold on a second” moon moment.

message National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) last week: “National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) “VIPER project ends, lunar exploration continues”

The space agency’s Volatile Investigation Polar Rover (VIPER) project has undergone a comprehensive internal review, with NASA finding price hikes, delayed launch dates and risks of future cost increases. Reasons for “canceling” the lunar ice exploration mission.

Some disassembly required

at this point timeNASA has invested $450 million into VIPER.

NASA said it plans to disassemble VIPER’s instruments and components and reuse them on future lunar missions.

Prior to dismantling, NASA welcomes expressions of interest from U.S. industry and international partners to use the existing VIPER rover system at no cost to the government.

NASA said the VIPER project is “on track to reach an orderly conclusion by spring 2025.”

Engineers assembling the VIPER. (Image credit: NASA/Helen Arace Vargas)

Dead flesh, dead burden

VIPER is a public-private partnership under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. Earth departure Astrobotic Griffin Lunar Module.

But Astrobotic is trying to overcome its own problems that have delayed Griffin’s flight readiness until September 2025.

NASA said the landing without VIPER “will serve as a flight demonstration of the Griffin lander and its engines. In VIPER’s absence, a “mass simulator” will be used to recreate the weight of the missing NASA rover.

From a rocky start to a good one

NASA's VIPER ice-exploring lunar rover is scheduled to travel to the Moon in 2023 aboard the commercial Astrobotic Griffin lander.

An artistic view of the Griffin lander deploying NASA VIPER. (Image courtesy of Astrobotic)

Firstly, it hasn’t been smooth sailing for Astrobotic.

In January of this year, the Astrobotic Peregrine Mission 1 Moon It failed due to a malfunction of the propulsion system in space.

Astrobotic said an accident investigation is expected soon to examine why the private company’s first lunar lander failed.

“Continuing VIPER would lead to increased costs and could lead to the cancellation or suspension of other CLPS missions,” the space agency said. statement “NASA has notified Congress of the agency’s intent,” it explained.

An illustration of the Nova-C lunar lander, a privately-built lunar lander built by Intuitive Machines, carrying NASA's Polar Resource Ice Mining Experiment-1 (PRIME-1).

The artwork depicts Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C IM-2 lander aboard NASA’s Polar Resources Ice-Mining Experiment-1. (Image source: Intuitive Machines)

“This is a historic milestone in our efforts to bring science to space,” Nicola Fox, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, added in a statement.

“NASA is planning a series of missions over the next five years to search for ice and other resources on the lunar surface.”

Handing over leadership

“VIPER is 100 percent complete, has undergone partial testing and is ready to depart, retiring a very capable rover and ceding leadership in resource exploration,” said Clive Neal, a distinguished lunar scientist at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

“This is a dark day for lunar science and exploration, and perhaps Project Artemis“I’m still shocked at the justification for canceling VIPER,” Neal told Space.com.

Norbert Schelghöfer, a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute, focuses on studying water ice in the lunar polar regions.

These images (inset), produced by the Lyman Alpha Mapping Project (LAMP) aboard NASA's Lunar Orbiter, reveal features at the moon's north and south poles, which are permanently shrouded in darkness. Scientists think these areas may hide fluffy soil or water ice.

These images (inset), produced by the Lyman Alpha Mapping Project (LAMP) aboard NASA’s Lunar Orbiter, reveal features at the moon’s north and south poles, which are permanently shrouded in darkness. Scientists think these areas may hide fluffy soil or water ice. (Image courtesy of Southwest Research Institute)

Schorghofer called determining the amount and distribution of water ice in the lunar poles a “science and exploration priority.”

“The cancellation of VIPER is a huge loss for science,” Schorghofer told Space.com. “No US robotic lunar exploration missions planned for the next three years have the capabilities we need. We need mobility and a way to explore below the surface as well as the surface.”

Ground Truth

Schorghofer added that ground-based investigations of the moon’s water ice would likely be conducted by the Japan-India Lunar Polar Exploration (LUPEX) project, currently underway with India, which is scheduled to launch in 2025. European Space Agency (ESA) will also be installed on the LUPEX rover.

Alternatively, the necessary research work on water ice on the lunar surface could be carried out by a Chinese robotic lander, Schorghofer said. Chang’e 7 2026.

“A manned mission to the Antarctic region may achieve its goals, but no one knows whether it will fly as planned,” Schorghofer said.

“If we are serious about finding ice on the moon, we need VIPER and [NASA’s crewed] “Artemis 3 is not going to get there, and it’s likely going to be much further into the future,” Schorghofer said.

Shocking News

Artist's concept of astronauts working on the moon's surface.

Artist’s concept of astronauts working on the moon’s surface. (Image courtesy of NASA)

Benjamin Greenhagen, president of the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG), said VIPER’s planned cancellation was devastating news.

Since 2004, LEAG has supported NASA by providing analysis of scientific, technical, commercial and operational issues to achieve lunar exploration goals.

“The LEAG community has long supported VIPER, and Resource Prospector before it,” Greenhagen advised fellow lunar explorers via the community submission website Lunar-L. “We believe in the mission and the unique value it brings to lunar exploration that would be lost without VIPER flying.”

Uncertain situation

Beyond the hardware, Greenhagen said, “VIPER is human, and given the uncertain situation, there must be great concern for the engineers and scientists working on testing and flying the completed rover. Please keep the VIPER team in your hearts.”

“LEAG will work to get that message across to NASA in the coming weeks and we expect to see other individual and community efforts join in as well,” Greenhagen wrote.

One such action has already begun.

Following the news that NASA is cancelling the VIPER mission, space Scientists have written a signed letter of support urging U.S. lawmakers to reconsider the decision.

Opposed to abolishing NASA

In an open letter to Congress, the statement urges lawmakers to reject NASA’s decision to cancel the VIPER lunar exploration mission.

The open letter has already garnered over 140 signatures from more than two dozen states in the US, and plans are underway to directly lobby the House and Senate committees mentioned in the letter to urge them to oppose NASA’s decision to terminate VIPER.

“We are deeply concerned by NASA’s shocking announcement on July 17 of its intention to cancel the VIPER lunar exploration mission,” the letter said. “VIPER was a groundbreaking American project, NASA’s first mission to understand the origin and distribution of lunar ice on and under the lunar surface, and was meant to be a critical step in enabling human exploration…”

Unprecedented and inexcusable

The open letter points out that the decision to cancel the mission “was made by NASA without providing the VIPER team or the entire lunar exploration community an opportunity to propose cost-saving measures or alternatives to dismantling and discarding the rover.”

The VIPER rover is already fully constructed and will undergo final testing in the coming months before its launch in 2024-2025, according to the letter.

“The decision to cancel the project at this stage, after spending $450 million, is unprecedented and inexcusable,” the letter argues.

Global News

‘A dark day for lunar science:’ Scientists shocked as NASA cancels VIPER moon rover

Related Posts

Leave A Reply Cancel Reply