VIPER moon mission of NASA worth $450 million got cancelled due to budget constrains

NASA Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) mission - (Photo Credit - NASA)

NASA due to budget concerns cancelled the VIPER Moon rover mission as the cost was exceeding. The space organization spent $450 million on this mission, and on Thursday, July,17 they made this announcement.

VIPER or Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) moon rover programme was planned to launch in 2025, boarding the Astrobotic Griffin lander as part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative (CLPS).

At the conference, NASA revealed that the mission will cost an additional amount of $84 million in development and the total $185 million spent excludes the launching cost.

During the press conference at NASA headquarters in Washington Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration, "We were very confident in the VIPER team. This really gets down to cost and a very constrained budget environment in the United States."

The VIPER rover was designed to land near the moon’s south pole and scout for lunar ice deposits over 100 days. Space organization shared that the VIPER was completely assembled and was undergoing some testing now according to the reports NASA is looking for the use of the VIPER instrument for future missions.

NASA is confident about its cover-up for this mission as the upcoming mission planned by the space organization can help in accomplishing the object set for this mission.

Such as the NASA  Lunar Terrain Vehicle which is aimed to carry the astronauts to the lunar surface and operate remotely on the surface to explore permanently shadowed regions near the lunar south pole in search of ice.

The team chose to launch the mission in 2024 after requesting a postponement and pushing it back to September 2025. The rover was initially scheduled to launch in late 2022.

This decision highlights the difficulties of space exploration and the crucial need for effective budget management in large-scale scientific endeavours. Despite the cancellation of VIPER, NASA remains dedicated to its lunar exploration goals and is seeking alternative missions to achieve the same scientific objectives.