NASA cancels $450M mission to drill for ice on the Moon
NASA cancels $450-million VIPER mission to drill for Moon ice due to budget constraints and delays. Agency seeks partners for rover use. Concerns raised, but NASA remains committed to lunar exploration.
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NASA has canceled its $450-million mission to drill for ice on the Moon, surprising researchers. The mission, called Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER), was terminated due to budget constraints, rising costs, and construction delays. The agency is now looking for partners interested in using the already assembled rover for future lunar missions. The cancellation of VIPER, which aimed to scout for ice at the Moon's south pole, could impact NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. Despite the setback, NASA remains committed to exploring the Moon for water and ice. The decision to scrap VIPER has raised concerns among scientists, with some suggesting that NASA could have stored the rover instead of dismantling it. Meanwhile, private aerospace companies like Astrobotic are still planning lunar missions, albeit without VIPER. NASA's Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment-1 (PRIME-1) mission is still on track to search for ice on the Moon's surface later this year.
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11 commentsFrom the lost talent alone, this seems catastrophic - why would any of the country's best engineers want to work on ambitious NASA projects when they can be rug-pulled so close to completion?
Also, where's the accountability or at least lessons learned in this cancelation? Is there a single finding on how to reduce cost overruns for future missions?
Huge sunk cost though, it might lower confidence in future budget talks.
0: https://www.space.com/moon-cave-lunar-exploration-radar-imag...
I'll note that it sounds like they were relying on a 3rd party to make their descent module, but it won't be ready in time. So if they were to go ahead with the launch they wouldn't have a way to land the thing.
Edit: I guess NASA says manned missions will cost billions. Still seems like half a billion is a lot for a glorified DJI drone thats only gotta make it to the moon lol. Regardless, money spent towards any space project tends to be money well spent, so compared to all the other spending I'd like to complain about, this isn't even on the radar.
We’ve been sending rovers to other planets for decades, so I assume there’s a good base of knowledge to build on. This isn’t basic research level, it seems like it should be a lot closer to production work. Satellites go up nearly every day, so I’d guess the space-spec supply chain is healthy.
Do post-mortem documents get published on programs like this? I really can’t understand it.
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