NASA Looks to Industry to Continue VIPER Lunar Rover Mission

Update (February 4, 2025):

NASA has announced that it intends to press forward with the VIPER mission in collaboration with industry partners. A call for proposals has gone out, with a deadline of March 3rd for responses. More detailed proposals will follow with a decision expected by this summer. Read more in NASA's press release.

The original story on VIPER's cancellation, published July 17, 2024, appears below.

The Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) was originally designed to search for ice as well as other resources in the cold, dark, and rugged conditions that exist at the south polar region of the Moon. It would have ridden and touched down on the lunar surface aboard the Griffin lander, developed by the aerospace company Astrobotic as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services Program. The team was aiming to drive it some 20 kilometers (12 miles) on the lunar surface over 100 days, going in and out of permanently shadowed regions.

But now, it won’t be doing any of those things. In a press conference held on Wednesday, July 17th, NASA announced it was canceling its part in this otherwise commercial mission.

While praising VIPER team members for their persistence and ingenuity in building the scientific instruments and the bulk of the vehicle, Joel Kearns (NASA HQ) notes that the rover, originally scheduled to launch in late 2023, was haunted by supply chain issues. “The delays occurred over and over for several key components,” he adds. Those delays in turn pushed back the assembly, integration, and testing of the golf cart–size vehicle. While the assembly was ultimately finished, the rover is only now beginning environmental testing.

While NASA had negotiated with Astrobotic to delay launch until no earlier than November 2024, so that Astrobotic could test Griffin's propulsion system, the supply-chain issues were about to necessitate a push back by another year, to September 2025. (That timing is in part constrained by VIPER itself, which needs to operate during the lunar south pole “summer,” when there’s more sunlight available.) That could have set a chain reaction of delays for subsequent commercial missions, says Nicola Fox, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate.

Cost overruns were another primary reason for cancellation. Let’s go through the numbers: The original cost had been $433.5 million, with launch due in 2023. That budget increased to $505.4 million to encompass the delay to 2024. A 2025 landing would have entailed another budget increase to $609.6 million. About $450 million has already been spent, and the rover itself is actually fully assembled. But there was also a risk of unknown future costs, such as further delays or fixes required if testing revealed problems, as often happens.

“We are in a highly constrained science budget environment at NASA,” Kearns says. “Science at NASA was $1 billion less in the current fiscal year than what was requested from Congress . . . and we’re getting indications that the environment will also be constrained in the next fiscal year coming up.”  

VIPER may see a second life, though. NASA is opening up the use of VIPER — including its scientific instruments and/or the vehicle itself — to U.S. industry and international partners. NASA’s press release notes where to send expressions of interest, which are due by August 1st. Meanwhile, the Griffin lander, which will carry some smaller payloads, is currently due to launch for the Moon in the fall of 2025. Before then, Firefly Aerospace and Intuitive Machines are planning for launches later this year.

Editorial note (July 24, 2024): This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Joel Kearns as well as to add details about the delay from 2023 to 2024, which was due to Astrobotics' propulsion testing rather than supply chain issues. (Supply chain issues played a role in further delays.)