NASA has ambitious plans for the Moon. By the end of the decade, they aim to send humans back to its surface. But before that, they plan to send probes to search for ice at the lunar south pole. This ice holds immense scientific value. It could shed light on how Earth obtained its liquid water, and it’s a prime candidate for conversion into rocket propellant.
However, in July, NASA made a surprising move. They cancelled their almost-complete Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER), a craft specifically designed to search for this ice, and offered it to commercial companies instead. This decision has left many scientists baffled.
VIPER, roughly the size of a Fiat 500, is already built and undergoing final testing at NASA’s Johnson Space Centre in Houston. It was set to launch next year on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, carried by an Astrobotic lander, a Pennsylvania-based firm, that NASA had already paid for. In recent years, NASA has adopted a new approach to lunar exploration, outsourcing landers and launchers to private companies. However, handing over an almost-complete mission to a private entity is unprecedented.
VIPER’s key instrument is a drill, built to dig for ice up to a meter beneath the lunar surface. It was designed to explore craters at the Moon’s south pole, which, due to the lunar orbit, never receive direct sunlight. Temperatures at the floor of these craters remain below -160°C, and previous spacecraft have detected hints of ice there. If a rover can provide definitive proof, future human lunar missions could extract this ice and potentially split its hydrogen atoms to create rocket fuel. NASA envisions the Moon becoming a refueling stop for future missions venturing further into the Solar System.
These lofty goals come with a hefty price tag. The VIPER project has cost NASA $433 million so far, exceeding its initial budget of $250 million. NASA claims it can no longer afford this cost, given its many other missions. Their solution: hand over VIPER to a commercial company. In exchange, the company would be responsible for the rover’s final tests, finding a way to land it on the Moon, and conducting its original scientific mission. Any new owner would be expected to share their findings with NASA, but they could also use the opportunity to advance their own lunar ambitions.
Eleven companies have submitted proposals. There’s a growing trend of commercial companies pursuing their own scientific missions, according to Laura Forczyk, founder of Astralytical, a Georgia-based space consulting firm. Two companies known to be interested are Houston-based Intuitive Machines, already under contract with NASA for a lunar communications network, and ORBITBeyond, based in New Jersey, selected by NASA for potential future Moon missions.
While the companies’ exact plans for VIPER remain unclear, NASA expects to save $84 million from the cancellation. Congress must approve this cancellation, a decision expected in the coming months. The House Science, Space, and Technology Committee has expressed concerns about the cancellation’s impact on American competitiveness, especially in light of China’s ambitions to prospect for ice at the Moon’s south pole.
This scenario highlights the evolving landscape of space exploration, where tight budgets are forcing agencies like NASA to consider new partnerships with the private sector. For those with deep pockets, opportunities like VIPER represent a potentially lucrative, if somewhat risky, venture into the final frontier.
