NASA Discontinues Moon Ice Exploration Rover Initiative Over Rising Costs, Delays

NASA is discontinuing an effort to develop a moon exploration rover due to delays and rising development costs.

On Wednesday, the U.S. space agency announced that it will cease the project dubbed VIPER, short for Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, initially scheduled to launch in 2023.

The agency plans to disassemble and repurpose components that make up the VIPER. Before disassembling the vehicle, the space agency sought expressions of interest from American industry and international partners for possible use cases for the system, NASA .gov reported.

Despite the project’s cancellation, Nicola Fox, associate administrator at the Science Mission Directorate of the NASA Headquarters, said the organization remains committed to advancing missions designed to identify ice and other resources on the moon in the coming five years. She added that the agency plans to reuse technologies that went into VIPER to preserve funds that went into the initiative.

VIPER is part of the Artemis mission, designed to explore resources on the moon’s south pole during a 100-day mission.