Do you remember Viper, the Lunar Rover out of NASA again? It is still in limbo
The viper lunar rover lunar rover almost complete but canceled from NASA will not be taken to the moon by a private space exploration company, but it is not very dead yet
The NASA viper, or the volatiles that investigate the polar exploration rover, can be seen in the impression of this artist.
The only thing consistent about NASA’s Lunar Lunar Rover is that the road to the moon has been rocky. And now the space agency has rejected its attempt to find a commercial partner to launch Viper Moonward, leaving the small space almost complete space in a continuous state of Limbo.
Viper (volatiles investigating the polar rover explorer) intended to launch this year to explore the South Lunar Pole in search of buried ice and other chemical compounds. But NASA canceled it in July 2024 after the delays led to excess costs. This is the second time that NASA rejected a lunar rover mission in recent years, says Philip Metzger, a planetary physicist at Florida Central (UCF). In 2018, NASA eliminated the Rover Rover of resources, which would have made a similar exploration.
In January, NASA increased the hopes that Viper somehow still see space when he calls for proposals so that private aerospace companies will launch and operate the rover. However, on May 7, NASA canceled that application for proposals.
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The agency says it is exploring new strategies for Viper in the future.
“We hope to achieve the science of future volatiles with Viper as the Moon exploration efforts continuously to NASA Mars,” said Nicky Fox, an associate administrator of the NASA Science Mission Directorate, in a recent statement.
Why can’t Viper take off?
The budgetary problems of the Rover began with the interruptions of the supply chain so that the Covid pandemic, says Casey Dreier, head of space policy of the planetary society. He was also scheduled to launch on a platform built by the AstroBotic Aerospace Company, which failed its first landing of an escalation version of that platform
The mission was unusually far away when NASA disconnected: the rover was completely assembled and was in the final stages of the tests for a launch. At that time, NASA had sunk almost $ 800 million in its construction and the contract with Astrobotic.
It is not clear why NASA does not have Bone cannot find a private partner to launch the Rover, but this company would have assumed the costs of the mission and agreed to share the data freely with the space agency. That was a difficult commercial case for private companies, Spacenews reported earlier this month.
What son of science was supposed to do Viper?
The 2.5 meters high The objective, says Clive Neal, an expert lunar at the University of Notre Dame, is to find resources that humans could use to establish a permanent research base on the Moon. The data on where these volatile could be and if they are accessible and removable are crucial for Artemis programs for the long -term human presence on the moon.
The rover carries four instruments: a neutrons spectrometer to detect water such as a meter under the surface, a nearby infrared spectrometer to determine the sampling composition, a mass spectrometer to analyze gases in the environment on ice ice. The drill is one of Viper’s great success characteristics, designed to make samples of up to one meter deep.
The cancellation of Viper, after the loss of resource prospector of 2018, is myopic, given the objectives of NASA, says Neal. “Is NASA really seriously about humans return to the moon?” Hey says. “Are you serious and are inacting our current space policy? Have you read it?”
Viper could also answer basic science questions about the origin of water on the moon, says UCFS Metzger. It may have been part of the lunar nucleus from the moment of its formation, or water could have arrived with planetary dust or large impactors in time, among other possibilities. “Understanding these processes is crucial to understand our solar system,” says Metzger. The answers could reveal more about how common are the bodies rich in water in the galaxy and how many planets or moons could organize life.
What’s still for Viper?
That is the big question. Until NASA publishes more details about possible future association structures, the project remains in a state of suspended animation.
“I don’t know what to do with him because there is very little information,” says Dreier.
It is possible that NASA can roopo negotiations with Astrobotic, the company that was originally going to launch the rover, says Neal. Or, Metzger suggests, the agency could be looking for international partners who can assume some of the operating costs.
There are no other American missions on the horizon with Viper’s drilling capabilities. If the rover does not look for a path to the moon, says Neal, two other lunar explorers of China could collect the flag of volatile science: Chang’e 7 and 8.
However, as uncertain as things look for Viper, it is an optimistic sign that NASA has not dropped the rover directly, says Dreier, making the White House proposed a 50 percent cut to NASA’s scientific programs and an agency rather than agency than in agency than in agency than in agency than in agency that agency. It is not openly identified as canceled, “Dreier says:” You are winning as a NASA science mission at this time. “
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