Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

NASA delays its VIPER moon mission

By

NASA is planning to send its VIPER vehicle to the lunar surface to search for ice and other resources, but the mission will now take place later than expected.

The space agency had planned to send VIPER — short for Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover — to our nearest neighbor in November 2023, but on Monday it said the mission will now take place in November 2024 at the earliest.

Recommended Videos

NASA said the delay is necessary because it wants to conduct further tests on Griffin, the lander that will set VIPER onto the lunar surface.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

“The additional tests aim to reduce the overall risk to VIPER’s delivery to the moon,” the space agency said in a post on its website, adding that to complete the additional NASA-mandated tests of the lander, an additional $67.8 million will be handed to Griffin builder Astrobotic, increasing the total cost of the contract to $320.4 million.

Related

Pennsylvania-based Astrobiotic is part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, which paves the way for private U.S.-based firms to create lunar delivery services for NASA missions as part of its Artemis space program. The agency has so far made seven awards to CLPS providers for lunar deliveries in the early 2020s with more delivery awards expected through 2028.

A prototype of VIPER shown off in January featured the same wheel design and also base size as the rover that will be sent to the moon. You can see it in action below:

Roll 'em out… on the Moon 🌕

Our VIPER rover's latest prototype is getting put to the test at @NASAGlenn, as we get ready to search for ice and other @NASAArtemis resources at the lunar South Pole: https://t.co/J5ADlFE6Vn pic.twitter.com/lgtZLM5z6S

— NASA (@NASA) January 26, 2022

According to the space agency, data gathered by VIPER will provide valuable information regarding the origin and distribution of water on the moon and help mission planners work out the best way to harvest those resources for future human space exploration.

For a closer look at VIPER and the 100-day mission that NASA has planned for it, Digital Trends has you covered.

Editors’ Recommendations

Topics
Trevor Mogg
Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
Don’t miss the Beaver Moon, the last supermoon of 2024
A supermoon rises over Huntsville, Alabama, home to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, Aug. 19, 2024. Supermoons are the biggest and brightest full Moons of the year because the Moon is within 90% of its closest point to Earth.

It's an exciting time for skywatchers right now, as not only is there the Leonid meter shower to look forward to, but there's also the last supermoon of the year appearing tomorrow, November 15. Known as the Beaver Moon, the moon will appear bigger and brighter than usual, so it's worth heading out and looking up for a chance to marvel at the beauty of the night sky.

A supermoon occurs when the moon is at its closest point to Earth. Although we tend to think of the moon's orbit as a perfect circle, it is in fact slightly elliptical, so sometimes the moon is further away and sometimes, like tomorrow, it is much closer. There is a difference of 27,000 miles from the moon's most distant point (called its apogee, with an average of 253,000 miles from Earth) to its nearest point (called the perigee, with an average of 226,00 miles from Earth), and this difference is enough to make the moon appear significantly larger or smaller than usual.

Read more
After a long break, NASA suggests timing for next spacewalk
NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps (center) assists NASA astronauts Mike Barratt (left) and Tracy C. Dyson inside the Quest airlock.

NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps (center) assists NASA astronauts Mike Barratt (left) and Tracy Dyson inside the station's Quest airlock on the day of an incident involving Dyson's incident. NASA TV

If you look at the list of spacewalks that have taken place at the International Space Station (ISS), you’ll notice that only two have taken place in 2024, with the last one happening in June.

Read more
See the polar moon sites where NASA plans to land its astronauts
An artist’s concept of an Artemis astronaut deploying an instrument on the lunar surface.

NASA has updated its list of potential landing sites for the next human visit to the moon, which is planned for 2026. The Artemis III mission will see the first crewed lunar landing since the Apollo era, and the plan is for astronauts to explore the moon's South Pole region where there is thought to be water ice on the lunar surface.

NASA shared a list of 13 candidate landing locations for Artemis III in 2022, but has now updated its list to nine candidates. Some of these were on the list previously, while others have been added such as the Mons Mouton mountain and plateau, which is particularly interesting to scientists because the height of the mountain means that there are permanently shadowed regions nearby. These places, where sunlight never touches, are particularly good candidates when it comes to looking for water ice.

Read more