NASA's VIPER Exploration Robot Has Reached Half Development

VIPER Robot For NASA's CLPS/DOK Initiative

JAKARTA - Volales Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) Project Manager Dan Andrews said his party continues to work hard in developing lunar rover robots.

In accordance with VIPER's launch target, namely next year, Andrews and his colleagues are trying to complete the robot development project on time. For now, VIPER has passed half the construction process.

"In fact, we are halfway through the manufacturing process and you can watch the process interactively through various live streaming during the process," Andrews said in a release by the United States Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA).

The leadership of the VIPER development team explained that all the cargo to be taken by VIPER had been submitted to the Integration and System Testing team.

All of these contents will be put directly into the VIPER once the rover is completed.

Although currently the construction of the VIPER is going quite well, Andrews said the rover had faced several obstacles. Some time ago, the connector and hardware sent by the vendor did not work properly.

Luckily, the VIPER team was able to overcome these challenges. The rover robot has also addressed the problem of delays in component delivery due to supply rantations that had been disrupted.

"This problem and solution is part of a challenging process in building flight articles and ensuring it can survive in a very harsh launch, landing, and operation environment on the lunar surface," Andrews said.

There is no exact date for the VIPER launch yet, but part of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative will focus on the material at the moon pole. The hope is that VIPER can provide an overview of the history of water on Earth, the Moon, and other planets in the Solar System.