VIPER has slithered its way out of an early grave.
The NASA-developed lunar rover, which was canceled last year, will hitch a ride on Blue Origin’s second MK1 lander that is expected to reach the Moon in late 2027.
Background: In July 2024, NASA announced that it would end its VIPER mission over cost and schedule overruns, despite the agency sinking $450M in the project and completing much of the rover’s construction, integration, and environmental testing.
The move was met with widespread criticism from members of Congress and the public.
Under the Trump administration, however, NASA has favored deep space exploration, even if it means cutting budgets for Earth sciences to invest in missions to the Moon and Mars.
NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy also recently tapped Amit Kshatriya as his deputy. Formerly the deputy associate administrator for the Moon to Mars program, Kshatriya’s appointment signaled that missions to the Moon would have a champion at the highest echelons of the agency.
The mission: VIPER—the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover—was designed to search for ice on or just below the Moon’s surface.
As part of the Blue Origin contract, the company’s MK1 robotic lander will deliver VIPER to the lunar south pole, where the rover will spend 100 days prospecting for lunar ice.
VIPER is equipped with several instruments to prospect for lunar H2O, including:
- A neutron spectrometer system to detect water and hydrogen in the lunar regolith, up to three feet beneath the surface.
- A one-meter drill, developed by Honeybee Robotics, to pull out soil cuttings.
- A near-infrared volatiles spectrometer system (NIRVSS) to detect finer minerals inside the soil, to determine if the regolith can be used to create rocket fuel.
- A mass spectrometer observing lunar operations, which will (in part) evaluate gasses emitted by the drill’s operations.
VIPER is also armed with an onboard computer and communications systems, which will transmit the vehicle’s findings back to NASA officials.
