NASA Delays VIPER Flight, Robot Searching For Ice Water On The Moon

NASA delays VIPER flight to the Moon. (photo: doc. NASA)

JAKARTA - NASA has finally postponed the flight of the VIPER rover, a special bot designed to hunt for water on the Moon's surface. Initially NASA was going to start an expedition to the Moon in November 2023. However, VIPER is now targeted for launch in November 2024 to allow testing of landers that will deliver vehicles to the Moon's surface.

VIPER, which stands for Volatile Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, is a major component of NASA's Artemis program, which aims to send humans back to the Moon. This rover robot is, in essence, a seeker.

To allow for additional testing of the lunar lander that will deliver our VIPER rover to the lunar South Pole, its arrival to the Moon is now scheduled for 2024. More details: https://t.co/yvIWPCrv9s pic.twitter.com/ rd3Ufk7S3o

— NASA Ames (@NASAAmes) July 18, 2022

Robot Equipped with special agile wheels, science instruments and drills. VIPER is designed to hunt for water ice or frozen water that is thought to be on the Moon's surface to determine how much is there, how scattered the water is, and what kind of shape the water is in. That way, if future missions want to mine water on the Moon, they'll have a better idea of where to look and what tools they'll need.

To bring VIPER to the Moon, NASA contracted a commercial company called Astrobotic through the space agency's CLPS program. This is an initiative to galvanize private companies to build a commercial landing platform on the moon.

Astrobotic, which is working on a fleet of lunar robotic landers, plans to use the future Griffin lander to bring VIPER to the lunar surface. But now, NASA has announced that it has requested additional testing of the Griffin lander, pushing the projected launch date back to the end of 2024.

With the change, NASA awarded Astrobotic an additional US$67.8 million (Rp1 trillion), bringing the company's total contract value for the VIPER mission to US$320.4 million (Rp4.7 trillion).

Despite the delayed rover, NASA plans to fly versions of the VIPER instrument on two upcoming commercial landers to the Moon later this year. The two landers include one being developed by Houston-based company Intuitive Machines, as well as another smaller lander called Peregrine being developed by Astrobotic.