NASA will spend about $800 million to not send a robotic rover to the moon. The rover, known as the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER, is already built.

VIPER, in which NASA has already invested $450 million, could be stripped and sold for parts. Or a commercial company could snap up the rover and commit some money to save the groundbreaking vehicle.

In January NASA raised hopes that VIPER might somehow still see space when it put out a call for proposals for private aerospace companies to launch and operate the rover. On May 7, however, NASA ...

Watch a prototype of NASA's Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, (VIPER) roll down a ramp to simulate its ...

Back in November 2019, NASA announced plans to send a new rover to the moon. After nearly 5 years and multiple delays, however, it seems Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) won ...

NASA’s original plan for VIPER was to spend $433.5 million building the rover, with a target launch date in 2023. But to accommodate delays with the rover’s ride to the moon—a lander called ...

NASA’s second thoughts about VIPER opened an opportunity for someone else to book that ride to the moon. Just because its cargo was canceled did not mean Astrobotic’s journey was off — it ...

NASA elected to cancel VIPER than pursue any of those alternatives, in part because the agency appeared skeptical that VIPER could be ready for launch by September 2025.

NASA’s decision to cancel the partnership solicitation is the latest setback for VIPER. NASA announced in July 2024 it would cancel the mission, then planned to launch on Astrobotic Technology ...

NASA is asking U.S. companies for proposals to move forward with the ice-hunting VIPER moon rover, a $450 million project the ...

July 17 (UPI) --NASA is ending its VIPER lunar rover project created in partnership with Lockheed Martin and General Motors, the space agency announced Wednesday. A program review by NASA showed ...

Ahead of those crewed missions, NASA had planned to send its robotic VIPER on a 100-day mission to explore the moon's south pole to locate, record and map images of water ice.