NASA Viper’s autonomous rover (Acronm from ‘Volatiles Investigating Polar Explorer Rover’) will be transported per month in 2027 by Jeff Bezos’s company.
Blue Origin, transmits Sunday Space.com that takes over a statement from the American Space Agency.
“NASA is Iider in selenary exploration more than ever, this mission is just one of the many missions through which we support the American industry to support the long -term presence on the Moon, said NASA administrator in Sean Duffy, reports
The Viper mission has taken shape as a pre -concealed key piece of the NASA Artemis program, which aims to establish a long -term sustainable human presence on and around 2030.
This presence will be centered on the Southern Polar Region of the Moon, which is believed to house a lot of water in the form of ice. Viper has been designed to verify the abundance and accessibility of this important resource, which can be used to support life, as well as to be decomposed into constituent hydrogen and oxygen atoms in order to refrain from rockets.
Initially, Viper had to be used at the end of the year 2023, on board Griffin, a modulator built by the astrobotic company, based in Pittsburgh: Astrobotic signed a contract in this regard with the Payload Services (CLPS) Commercial Program of NASA. But the meetings with both Griffin and Viper have postponed the target date several times. Then, in July 2024. NASA announced that it canceled the mission, which exceeded the budget, even if the rover the size of a car was already completely assembled. This would save about $ 84 million, according to the agency, who had spent about $ 450 million for the mission until then.
NASA also said that he intends to request offers from private companies, to see if one wants to unite to take Viper per month (and take part of the costs). If this did not work, the agency said that the engineers will dismantle Viper and install its key tools on other monthly robots in the future.
In May of last year, however, NASA announced that he puts the search for industrial partnership, saying he will announce a new Viper strategy in the future.
