NASA’s lunar rover, the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER, will explore the relatively nearby but extreme environment of the Moon in search of water ice and other potential resources. This mobile robot will land at the South Pole of the Moon in late 2023 on a 100-day mission. The critical information it provides will teach us about the origin and distribution of water on the Moon and help determine how we can harvest the Moon’s resources for future human space exploration.
NASA to Announce Selection of Company to Fly VIPER Rover to MoonNASA will announce the commercial provider selected to deliver NASA’s new water-hunting mobile robot, the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER), to the South Pole of the Moon during a media teleconference at 2:30 p.m. EDT Wednesday, June 10. As the first resource-mapping mission on the surface of another world, VIPER will help pave the way for a new era of human missions to the lunar surface and will bring NASA a step closer to developing a sustainable, long-term robotic and human presence on the Moon as part of the Artemis program.Members of the media may request to join the teleconference by emailing their name, affiliation, and phone number to Alison Hawkes at [email protected] or Rachel Kraft at [email protected] by 12:30 p.m. June 10.The teleconference audio will stream live at:https://www.nasa.gov/liveSupporting materials also will be available at nasa.gov/live.VIPER’s delivery to the Moon is part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative, an innovative, service-based, competitive acquisition approach that enables rapid, affordable, and frequent access to the lunar surface via a growing market of American commercial providers. The selected company will be responsible for end-to-end services for delivery of VIPER, including integration with its lander, launch from Earth, and landing in a polar region on the Moon in late 2023VIPER’s delivery to the Moon is part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative, which will leverage the capabilities of commercial industry to send scientific instruments and technology demonstrations to the Moon quickly. The selected company will be responsible for end-to-end services for delivery of VIPER, including integration with its lander, launch from Earth, and landing in a polar region on the Moon in late 2023.For more information about NASA’s VIPER mission, visit:https://nasa.gov/viper
How many landers are capable of delivering VIPER? Blue Moon, Starship and maybe Astrobotic's proposed Griffin? XUES if it was pitched?
NASA's media telecon to announce the VIPER CLPS selection has been delayed one day. Now is Thursday at 11:00 am ET.
BREAKING: Following the cost-saving success of @Commercial_Crew, @NASA’s commercial partner @Astrobotic will deliver the VIPER rover to the Moon’s South Pole. We will find, characterize, & eventually utilize the water ice on the Moon! VIPER will inform our human landing in 2024.
ASTROBOTIC AWARDED $199.5 MILLION CONTRACT TO DELIVER NASA MOON ROVERJUNE 11, 2020Astrobotic’s Griffin lunar lander to carry the NASA VIPER mission to the south pole of the Moon in 2023, as a precursor to a human landingPittsburgh, PA – Astrobotic, the world’s leading lunar logistics service provider, has been selected by NASA to deliver the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER, to the south pole of the Moon in 2023.Astrobotic will provide an end-to-end delivery for VIPER on board the company’s Griffin lunar lander through a $199.5 million contract awarded under the NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, or CLPS. Griffin’s delivery of VIPER will be Astrobotic’s second CLPS delivery, following the company’s Peregrine lander delivery in 2021. In addition, Astrobotic’s MoonRanger rover was previously selected by NASA for delivery to the Moon in 2022 on the lander of another CLPS partner.The Griffin lunar lander is Astrobotic’s medium capacity lander product line, and is capable of delivering up to 500 kg of mass to the lunar surface. Griffin uses many of the same subsystems and approaches employed by the Peregrine lander, which will fly two years before VIPER. Both lander product lines put a heavy emphasis on safe and reliable delivery of customer payloads to the Moon.When VIPER disembarks from Griffin’s ramps onto the Moon, it will survey the surface and subsurface for water ice, which could be used for breathable air and rocket propellant by future deep space explorers. VIPER’s mapping of lunar water ice could be the first step toward utilizing resources in the space environment – rather than carting them all from Earth – to enable more affordable and sustainable space exploration.“It is an enormous honor and responsibility to be chosen by NASA to deliver this mission of national importance,” said Astrobotic CEO John Thornton. “Astrobotic’s lunar logistics services were created to open a new era on the Moon. Delivering VIPER to look for water and setting the stage for the first human crew since Apollo embodies our mission as a company.”
NASA Selects Astrobotic to Fly Water-Hunting Rover to the MoonNASA has awarded Astrobotic of Pittsburgh $199.5 million to deliver NASA’s Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) to the Moon’s South Pole in late 2023.The water-seeking mobile VIPER robot will help pave the way for astronaut missions to the lunar surface beginning in 2024 and will bring NASA a step closer to developing a sustainable, long-term presence on the Moon as part of the agency’s Artemis program.“The VIPER rover and the commercial partnership that will deliver it to the Moon are a prime example of how the scientific community and U.S. industry are making NASA’s lunar exploration vision a reality,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. “Commercial partners are changing the landscape of space exploration, and VIPER is going to be a big boost to our efforts to send the first woman and next man to the lunar surface in 2024 through the Artemis program.”VIPER’s flight to the Moon is part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, which leverages the capabilities of industry partners to quickly deliver scientific instruments and technology demonstrations to the Moon. As part of its award, Astrobotic is responsible for end-to-end services for delivery of VIPER, including integration with its Griffin lander, launch from Earth, and landing on the Moon.During its 100-Earth-day mission, the approximately 1,000-pound VIPER rover will roam several miles and use its four science instruments to sample various soil environments. Versions of its three water-hunting instruments are flying to the Moon on earlier CLPS lander deliveries in 2021 and 2022 to help test their performance on the lunar surface prior to VIPER’s mission. The rover also will have a drill to bore approximately 3 feet into the lunar surface.“CLPS is a totally creative way to advance lunar exploration,” said NASA’s Associate Administrator for Science Thomas Zurbuchen. “We’re doing something that’s never been done before – testing the instruments on the Moon as the rover is being developed. VIPER and the many payloads we will send to the lunar surface in the next few years are going to help us realize the Moon’s vast scientific potential.”
#NASA #VIPER #Astrobotic - On Launch slip - .@Dr_ThomasZ - Most important change being made: Ask the team to equip VIPER to survive the lunar night. When it launches is up to the location either the northern or southern pole, but want to link this up with #Artemis landing targets
Does the quoted $200 million dollar price include the launch cost?
Would they build two rovers at same time?. Means they have spare for 2nd mission if there are problems with this one. Even if mission is success may want second mission to collect additional data.
Probably a lot of flight spares which would help build a second one later. Going to more than one place would be useful in the long run.
This was a vigorous selection process and I want to thank everyone for their hard work. We reviewed 7 proposals from our robust Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) pool. Stay updated on future commercial @NASAMoon announcements: https://www.nasa.gov/content/commercial-lunar-payload-services
Surprising that the Griffin used M20 as fuel but the smaller Peregrine lander uses MMH.
Quote from: GWH on 06/11/2020 04:46 pmSurprising that the Griffin used M20 as fuel but the smaller Peregrine lander uses MMH.Never heard of M20 before, which seems to be 20% methanol and 80% petrol.https://www.intechopen.com/books/biofuels-challenges-and-opportunities/comparison-of-ethanol-and-methanol-blending-with-gasoline-using-engine-simulation
Now Tony Colaprete on VIPER.
Colaprete -- PDR scheduled for Aug 26-27. Launch in November 2023.
Colaprete -- VIPER required measurements
Colaprete -- VIPER dimensions. It is solar powered. MER-sized, about 450 kg.
Colaprete -- we have a ride! New paradigm. Astrobotic will deliver us on Griffin lander. Going very well.
Tony Colaprete VIPER An overview of the mission conducts exploration science, the model itself after some applied science applications. About a week 1st major design review Launch set for Nov. 2023
#NASA #PAC - Tony Colaprete #VIPER Viper timeline
A NASA rover mission to look for ice at the south pole of the moon has passed a key review, but now costs significantly more than previously advertised.[...]NASA didn’t disclose the reason for the cost increase, but NASA officials said in June 2020 that they were postponing VIPER’s launch by about a year to late 2023 to change the rover’s design so it can meet the goal of operating for 100 days on the lunar surface. At the time, the agency declined to comment on VIPER’s cost.
We're going to the Moon again - this time with @SpaceX! Falcon Heavy will carry our Griffin lunar lander to the Moon in late 2023 along with NASA’s water-hunting Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER).
Our VIPER Moon rover will roam the Moon's surface in search of water ice. The mission, launching in late 2023, will bring us a step closer to our goal of a sustainable human presence on the Moon under our #Artemis program:
VIPER progress continues moving full speed ahead. NASA’s investment in the mid-size rover for mission development costs and operations is $433.5 million. The current delivery contract value for Astrobotic to deliver VIPER to the Moon through CLPS is approximately $226.5 million.
What happend with PDR? We are waiting for this for the last several years.
I’m very proud to share that the VIPER team held a successful preliminary design review, or PDR, and the recent, successful confirmation review, known formally as key decision point C, shows the VIPER project team successfully demonstrated to NASA leadership that it can meet all the requirements with an acceptable level of risk within cost and schedule restraints. This confirmation clears the way to officially implement the final design of the rover, putting the mission an important step closer to launching to the Moon’s South Pole in late 2023.The VIPER team now continues to detail our design baselined at the PDR, as it looks towards the next major milestone, critical design review, in the fall of 2021.- Dan Andrews, VIPER project manager
And we’re rolling! Our water-hunting VIPER Moon rover will use two folding ramps to descend from lander to lunar surface. A test robot and model lander gave the ramp design a try at @NASA_Johnson to make sure it will all roll smoothly on the Moon 🌔: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/ames/off-ramps-to-the-moon
In 2023, NASA’s Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) will land near the western edge of the Nobile Crater at the Moon’s South Pole to map and explore the region’s surface and subsurface for water and other resources. Part of Artemis, VIPER will launch on a SpaceX Falcon-Heavy rocket for delivery to the Moon by Astrobotic’s Griffin lander under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative.The Moon’s South Pole is one of the coldest areas in our solar system. No prior missions to the Moon’s surface have explored it – scientists have thus far only studied the region using remote sensing instruments, including those on NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite.Data from these and other missions helped scientists conclude that ice and other potential resources exist in permanently shadowed areas of the Moon near the poles. After an extensive landing site selection process, the mountainous area west of Nobile Crater was chosen as VIPER’s landing site due to its rover-accessible terrain and array of nearby sites of scientific interest, including permanently shadowed areas.“Once on the lunar surface, VIPER will provide ground truth measurements for the presence of water and other resources at the Moon’s South Pole, and the areas surrounding Nobile Crater showed the most promise in this scientific pursuit” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for science at NASA Headquarters. “The data VIPER returns will provide lunar scientists around the world with further insight into our Moon’s cosmic origin, evolution, and history, and it will also help inform future Artemis missions to the Moon and beyond by enabling us to better understand the lunar environment in these previously unexplored areas hundreds of thousands of miles away.”Nobile Crater is an impact crater that was formed through a collision with another smaller celestial body, and is almost permanently covered in shadows, allowing ice to exist there. Smaller, more accessible craters surrounding Nobile’s perimeter, will also provide VIPER with ideal locations to investigate in its search for ice and other resources.“Selecting a landing site for VIPER is an exciting and important decision for all of us,” Daniel Andrews, VIPER project manager, said. “Years of study have gone into evaluating the polar region VIPER will explore. VIPER is going into uncharted territory—informed by science—to test hypotheses and reveal critical information for future human space exploration.”
QuoteIn 2023, NASA’s Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) will land near the western edge of the Nobile Crater at the Moon’s South Pole to map and explore the region’s surface and subsurface for water and other resources. Part of Artemis, VIPER will launch on a SpaceX Falcon-Heavy rocket for delivery to the Moon by Astrobotic’s Griffin lander under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative.The Moon’s South Pole is one of the coldest areas in our solar system. No prior missions to the Moon’s surface have explored it – scientists have thus far only studied the region using remote sensing instruments, including those on NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite.Data from these and other missions helped scientists conclude that ice and other potential resources exist in permanently shadowed areas of the Moon near the poles. After an extensive landing site selection process, the mountainous area west of Nobile Crater was chosen as VIPER’s landing site due to its rover-accessible terrain and array of nearby sites of scientific interest, including permanently shadowed areas.“Once on the lunar surface, VIPER will provide ground truth measurements for the presence of water and other resources at the Moon’s South Pole, and the areas surrounding Nobile Crater showed the most promise in this scientific pursuit” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for science at NASA Headquarters. “The data VIPER returns will provide lunar scientists around the world with further insight into our Moon’s cosmic origin, evolution, and history, and it will also help inform future Artemis missions to the Moon and beyond by enabling us to better understand the lunar environment in these previously unexplored areas hundreds of thousands of miles away.”Nobile Crater is an impact crater that was formed through a collision with another smaller celestial body, and is almost permanently covered in shadows, allowing ice to exist there. Smaller, more accessible craters surrounding Nobile’s perimeter, will also provide VIPER with ideal locations to investigate in its search for ice and other resources.“Selecting a landing site for VIPER is an exciting and important decision for all of us,” Daniel Andrews, VIPER project manager, said. “Years of study have gone into evaluating the polar region VIPER will explore. VIPER is going into uncharted territory—informed by science—to test hypotheses and reveal critical information for future human space exploration.”More details, press-release:https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-artemis-rover-to-land-near-nobile-region-of-moon-s-south-pole
The area VIPER will study in the Nobile region covers an approximate surface area of 36 square miles (93 square kilometers), 10 to 15 miles (16 to 24 km) of which VIPER is expected to traverse through during the course of its mission. During this time, the rover will visit carefully chosen areas of scientific interest that will provide further insight into a wide array of different kinds of lunar environments. The VIPER team will look to characterize ice and other resources in these areas using VIPER’s sensors and drill.As VIPER moves among each area of scientific interest, it will collect samples from at least three drill locations. Analysis of these samples from a variety of depths and temperatures will help scientists to better predict where else ice may be present on the Moon based on similar terrain, allowing NASA to produce a global resource map. This map, and the other science VIPER will produce, will allow scientists to better understand the distribution of resources on the Moon and help inform future crewed missions to establish a long-term presence on the lunar surface.
Does the recent news regarding NASA adding 8 new scientists to the VIPER build team suggest that additional instrumentation may be added to the rover?https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/nasa-selects-new-members-for-artemis-rover-science-team
May 31, 2022MEDIA ADVISORY 22-004Media Invited to View Testing of NASA’s Water Hunting Moon RoverNASA invites the media to view full-scale egress testing of the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) prototype and the structural test model of Astrobotic’s Griffin lunar lander at 11 a.m. EDT on Thursday, June 2, at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.The lander egress testing uses the latest hardware prototypes from NASA and Astrobotic to verify VIPER’s ability to exit the lander safely and effectively after touchdown. This testing is a critical step toward the rover’s trip to the Moon’s South Pole to map valuable resources for future Artemis missions.Media interested in viewing the rover egress testing should contact Jimi Russell at [email protected] by 4 p.m. on Wednesday, June 1. All dates and times are subject to change.Following egress testing, a VIPER prototype will remain at NASA Glenn for additional mobility and traction tests at the center’s Simulated Lunar Operations Laboratory.Later this year, construction of the mission rover will begin at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, while the flight software and navigation system development will take place at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. Astrobotic will receive the complete rover with its scientific instruments in mid-2023 in preparation for launch as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative. For more information on VIPER, visit:https://www.nasa.gov/viper-end-
A timelapse look at @NASA @NASAglenn testing for its Moon rover, known as "VIPER." This mission, slated for late next year, will help determine where and how much water exists on the Moon.
Package status: DELIVERED!The first of the science instruments for our VIPER Moon rover, the Near Infrared Volatile Spectrometer Subsystem (NIRVSS), has arrived at @NASA_Johnson where the rover build will take place. Next step, unboxing! Learn more: nasa.gov/viper
Such a relief when packages are delivered 📦 Our Near-Infrared Volatiles Spectrometer System (NIRVSS) instrument, pronounced as “nervous”, is the 1st of our VIPER Moon rover’s science instruments to arrive at @NASA_Johnson ahead of the rover build: go.nasa.gov/3YzxeJ7
Dec 19, 2022First Science Instrument for NASA's Upcoming Moon Rover DeliveredA science instrument that can reveal the composition of lunar soil has arrived at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston in preparation for integration into NASA's Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER). VIPER is scheduled to be delivered to the Moon’s South Pole in late 2024 by Astrobotic’s Griffin lander as part of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative.The Near-Infrared Volatiles Spectrometer System (NIRVSS) instrument (pronounced “nervous”), features a spectrometer – a device that looks at light emitted or absorbed by materials to help identify their composition. In lunar soil, that will mean detecting which types of minerals and ices are present, if any. Scientists predict NIRVSS might detect frozen water ice, carbon dioxide, ammonia, and methane. NIRVSS also has the ability to determine the nature of any hydrogen it might encounter. On the Moon, hydrogen could belong to water molecules or to its close molecular cousin hydroxyl, or just exist as hydrogen atoms – any of which could be a useful resource to help enable long-term human exploration of the Moon and other parts of deep space. Knowing the nature of the Moon’s hydrogen also speaks to the origin of the hydrogen itself, and could provide insight into the origin and evolution of water on the Moon.“It’s great to see NIRVSS safely made its trip to Johnson from Ames, where we’ve spent many months designing, building, and testing – it’s a great step forward, ever closer to collecting science data on the Moon,” said Tony Colaprete, VIPER project scientist and NIRVSS principal investigator at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, where the VIPER mission is managed. “Of the four science instruments, NIRVSS was scheduled to – and needed to – arrive first because it sits down in the belly of the rover.”The arrival of NIRVSS is one of many early build tasks the VIPER team is crossing off their lists in preparation for the rover’s construction, which begins in early 2023. In the meantime, teams at NASA Ames, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and Honeybee Robotics in Altadena, California, will continue testing and checkouts of the Neutron Spectrometer System (NSS), Mass Spectrometer Observing Lunar Operations (MSolo), and The Regolith and Ice Drill for Exploration of New Terrains (TRIDENT) respectively. A team at NASA Ames will continue developing the rover flight software that will be used to interactively operate the rover and conduct science in near-real time from Earth.Last Updated: Dec 19, 2022Editor: Rachel HooverTags: Ames Research Center
Two people in white lab coats in a clean room make adjustments to the NIRVSS instrument.
Our Griffin lunar lander has ramps on both sides of its deck, providing VIPER with 2 egress, or exit, options to drive onto the Moon's surface. This Griffin model was tipped and rolled to allow the rover operators to practice driving in different landing & ramp orientations.
The hardest part could be the start!Driving onto the Moon is one of the most critical (and trickiest) parts of our VIPER Moon rover’s 100-day mission. Recent tests at @NASAAmes practiced the drive down steep, tilted ramps and uneven terrains: go.nasa.gov/3pyeehi
Aug 11, 2023Let’s Get Building!I’m proud to share that the VIPER team successfully passed the agency’s gate review, permitting the team to fully proceed into building our flight rover! This mandatory review requires flight projects to demonstrate their readiness for integration activites, including having procedures, facilities, and hardware on hand to start the assembly process. This is an especially challenging and important review, given the risk potential to the flight hardware, and passing this review officially moves the VIPER mission from design and verification, into assembly and integration, leading up to launch in late 2024.The VIPER team prepared for this moment for many months now, getting our new cleanroom up and running, and performance calibration tests in our key facilities, like thermovaccuum chambers, vibration stands, and acoustic facilities – some of which have long histories supporting other NASA missions.We continue to get every bit of prep-work completed, while we wait for delivery of some critical pieces of hardware. As a result, the VIPER team continues to be agile and responsive to changing conditions, daily.Go VIPER!- Dan Andrews, VIPER Project ManagerLast Updated: Aug 11, 2023Editor: Rachel Hoover
On to the Moon soon… Our VIPER Moon rover prototype practices exiting a model lunar lander at @NASAJohnson! These test drives will help ensure a successful arrival on the Moon's South Pole in late 2024.More on VIPER: nasa.gov/viper
Mobile on the MoonThat’s what our VIPER rover will have to be. These extreme mobility tests help ensure that our robot is ready for the lunar South Pole. More about the mission:
Watch NASA Build Its First Robotic Moon RoverRachel HooverNOV 03, 2023ARTICLELee esta nota de prensa en español aquí.The public now has a live, front row seat to see NASA’s first robotic Moon rover take shape in the Surface Segment Integration and Testing Facility clean room at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Members of VIPER — short for the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover — and the Office of Communications at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, will host watch parties and answer questions from the public about the mission in both English and Spanish. These webchats and watch parties will occur as the rover is assembled and tested, approximately once a month from November 2023 through January 2024 . In late 2024, VIPER will embark on a mission to the lunar South Pole to trek into permanently shadowed areas and unravel the mysteries of the Moon’s water.“We’re really excited for people to see the VIPER rover hardware coming together,” said Daniel Andrews, the VIPER mission project manager at NASA Ames. “All of our planning and ideas are now going into building this first-of-its-kind Moon rover.”Individual components such as the rover’s science instruments, lights, and wheels, have already been assembled and tested. Once delivered to the testing facility, other components will be integrated together to become the approximately 1,000-pound VIPER.Months of final assembly and testing lie ahead before VIPER is ready to ship to the Astrobotic Payload Processing Facility in Florida in mid-2024. VIPER’s lunar landing atop Mons Mouton is scheduled for late-2024, where it will get a close-up view of the lunar surface and measure the location and concentration of water ice and other resources. Using its drill and three science instruments, researchers will gain a better understanding of how frozen water and other volatiles are distributed on the Moon, their cosmic origin, and what has kept them preserved in the lunar soil for billions of years. VIPER will also inform future Artemis missions by helping to characterize the lunar environment and help determine locations where water and other resources could be harvested to sustain humans for extended missions.NASA Ames manages the VIPER mission and also leads the mission’s science, systems engineering, real-time rover surface operations, and the rover’s flight software. The rover vehicle is being designed and built by NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, while the instruments are provided by Ames, Kennedy Space Center in Florida and commercial partner Honeybee Robotics in Altadena, California. The spacecraft, lander, and launch vehicle that will deliver VIPER to the surface of the Moon will be provided through NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative, delivering science and technology payloads to and near the Moon.For more information about VIPER visit:http://www.nasa.gov/viper
Engineers assemble and test NASA’s first robotic Moon rover in a clean room at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.NASA/Robert Markowitz
question - why is viper here and not in the science section like all other planetary missions under construction
Eric Berger has some . . . interesting thoughts this weekend on what will happen with VIPER. As in: He seems certain that VIPER will not go up on the Griffin lander. <snip>
Quote from: Athelstane on 02/25/2024 01:53 pmEric Berger has some . . . interesting thoughts this weekend on what will happen with VIPER. As in: He seems certain that VIPER will not go up on the Griffin lander. <snip>In hindsight seems more prudent to do a demo landing with a few minor (expendable) payloads with any of the CLPS providers with their first Lunar landing attempt, maybe even a second demo landing if some issues arises with the first attempt.
The VIPER team continues to push forward with the build of the flight rover that’ll go to the surface of the Moon. As of this writing, all of VIPER’s flight instruments are installed, and the rover is more than 80% built! This is a major accomplishment and shows the great progress being made by the dedicated VIPER team, who are excited to see the rover coming together.What comes next – the confirmational tests of the rover – will strengthen our confidence in the rover’s ability to survive launch, landing, and the challenging environment of the lunar South Pole. For example, as we assemble and install various subsystems onto the rover, we also perform channelization tests. Channelization tests let us confirm that through our design and build of the rover system – from piece-parts to cable harnesses and connectors, and mechanical installation activities, and even through avionics software – the connections all work. Now, you might think, “Of course what we installed should work!” but it’s important to remember how complicated these space systems are (and planetary rover systems in particular). An example of an upcoming channelization test for VIPER is to command the flight vehicle’s high gain antenna to move in a particular way: Does it actually move in the correct direction and to the correct position? Sometimes we will perform even more complex tests, like sending a command to the NIRVSS instrument to take an image: Is the image taken successful? Is the field of view of the image correct? Did the image make its way into the rover’s avionics for downlink? We make these determinations now because we don’t want to discover any issues later in the assembly flow that could result in us needing to perform some disassembly to correct matters. So we test as we go, to decrease risk later when we’re performing whole-rover environmental tests. This way if the rover doesn’t work as expected after one of VIPER’s environmental tests, we know it once worked fine, and that can help us more quickly problem solve what might have gone wrong.The pace in which we’ve been working through the build and subsystem checkouts has been blistering lately, and we’ve had a good run of successes.Go VIPER!– Dan Andrews, VIPER Project Manager
Eric Berger has some . . . interesting thoughts this weekend on what will happen with VIPER. As in: He seems certain that VIPER will not go up on the Griffin lander. The conversation:Delta9250: So Astrobotic’s next CLPS mission will land a decently large rover on a brand new lander which is even bigger and more complex than Peregrine. Considering the difficulties Peregrine faced…can we like not do this? Please?Eric Berger: It’s not going to happen.Delta9250: Who will land Viper?Eric Berger: That's a great question. I don't think it's been decided. But I'm reasonably confident it will not be flying on the first Griffin lander at this point.https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/1761108629615161478https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/1761109566392037515
The logical choice would be for NASA to order another Griffin lander, so that the first mission can be used as a demo mission.
Quote from: yg1968 on 02/29/2024 12:45 amThe logical choice would be for NASA to order another Griffin lander, so that the first mission can be used as a demo mission.If NASA wants a test flight before VIPER they have two bad options: buy a sole-source test flight from Astrobotic, or buy both a test flight and a new real flight from someone after a competition. It's a shame that NASA didn't require test flights from the beginning, which would probably have given them a better price than adding it at the last minute without competition.
All of these options mean a considerable delay in VIPER reaching the Moon, needless to say. If Eric's sense of the situation is accurate.
Quote from: Athelstane on 03/02/2024 02:09 amAll of these options mean a considerable delay in VIPER reaching the Moon, needless to say. If Eric's sense of the situation is accurate.Maybe the better option for NASA would be to start building a second VIPER, and entrust VIPER-1 to the untested Griffin lander.
The price of the Griffin lander is $320M. However, part of the reason that the price of the Griffin lander increased from its initial price of $199.5M to $320M is that NASA required additional testing for it (see the link to the first article below). The price of the VIPER mission by itself (i.e., excluding the lander) was $433.5M (see the link to the second article below). Ordering a second Griffin lander might not be the best option given how expensive a Griffin lander is. I have changed my mind, I now think that NASA has no choice but to stick to the plan. However, I would expect delays to the launch of VIPER to at least next year. https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/nasa-replans-clps-delivery-of-viper-to-2024-to-reduce-risk-2/https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/nasa-ig-criticizes-nasas-management-of-viper-and-multi-mission-programs/
- will fly Nova C lander at least three times - then Nova D, a lot more cargo, maybe a metric ton to the surface
Note there's a VIPER launch thread in the SpaceX missions section of the forum (https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=53576.0) which has some relevant updates. I don't know whether the existence of two threads is intentional and if so what the difference between the threads is supposed to be.