NASA will delay the launch of his Water Hunt Viper moon rover by a year to have more time to develop a landing vehicle missionthe space agency announced on Monday.
The launch of the Viper – Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover – was scheduled for November 2023, but that launch date is now being pushed back to November 2024. This will allow more time for ground testing of the Griffin lander that will deliver Viper to the Moon- South Poleaccording to that Nasa statement.
Both the Viper and Griffin lander are manufactured by Astrobiotic, a Pittsburgh company contracted by NASA to build the pair through the space agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS Program designed to encourage innovation in lunar exploration technology among private space companies.
“VIPER is NASA’s largest and most advanced science payload to be delivered to the Moon via CLPS, and we have implemented advanced lander testing for this particular CLPS surface delivery,” said Joel Kearns, NASA’s associate assistant administrator for exploration, in a statement .
Around the size of a golf cart and weighing less than 1,000 pounds, the Viper rover will use its 3.28-foot drill bit to study lunar regolith and look for water on various types of lunar terrain, including craters that deep shadow water ice for billions of years may have been preserved.
A better understanding of where and in what quantities water might be present on the moon will help inform Nasa’s future Artemis missions. Beginning with Artemis III, which is slated for launch in 2025, Nasa astronauts will explore the moon’s south polar region, potentially conducting experiments on harvesting lunar water for drinking, washing and making fuel.
“That [Viper] The rover will teach us about the origin and distribution of water on the moon and prepare us to harvest resources 240,000 miles from Earth that could be used to safely launch astronauts even further into space, including Mars send it,” said Sarah Noble, NASA Viper program scientist a statement.
