NASA Shelves VIPER Lunar Landing Mission Due to Budget Issues

TapTechNews August 12th news, in mid-July, NASA in the US announced to shelve the VIPER lunar landing mission. The project has cost 450 million US dollars (TapTechNews note: currently about 3.229 billion Chinese yuan) so far and aims to map the location and concentration of potential extraterrestrial resources (such as ice) in the south pole of the moon.

Although the development work has not encountered major problems and is currently in the environmental testing stage, due to budget issues, NASA decided to end this task prematurely. The agency expects to save at least 84 million US dollars (currently about 603 million Chinese yuan) in development costs plus launch costs.

As a result, the VIPER (abbreviation for Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover) lunar rover will not be used for the time being. After the news of the mission cancellation was announced, NASA said that it accepted the opinions of the broader community's interests, and is ready to provide the VIPER rover as is to interested partners, basically saving 100 days of work in the lunar exploration plan.

Last Friday local time, NASA issued a request for information, seeking the interest of US companies and institutions in using the VIPER rover to carry out missions, and added that it will solicit the interest of the international community through different channels.

NASA said that doing so is part of the commitment to implement a robust and sustainable lunar exploration plan for the benefit of all. It hopes to learn more about how interested parties can use VIPER in a lowest government cost or even free way.