NASA cancels planned Moon rover after spending $450 million. Here’s why

NASA announced that it had to cancel a planned Moon rover after spending $459 million to develop it due to cost overruns and delay in the project. This is a significant setback for the agency's lunar exploration program, according to a AFP report.

The purpose of Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) was to explore the lunar south pole to search for ice and other resources. The project was aimed to pave the way for planned crew missions by American astronauts under the Artemis program later.

"Decisions like this are never easy," said Nicky Fox, NASA's associate administrator of the science mission directorate was quoted by AFP.

"But in this case, the projected remaining expenses for VIPER would have resulted in having to either cancel or disrupt many other missions," he added.

The rover was initially planned to be launched in 2023 with the hope of venturing into Moon's shadowed craters where ice reserves are stored for a billion of years.

In 2022, however NASA delayed the launch to late 2024 for preflight testing of the Griffin lander vehicle, provided by Astrobotic, a Pittsburgh-based company under the new Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, a public-private venture.

The launch date of the rover was again delayed to September 2025 with a rise in project cost to $609.6 million.

Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration in NASA's science mission directorate, added that Congress has been informed about NASA's decision, the report said.

The rover was "completely assembled" but certain tests were still due that would verify if it could withstand launch, flying through the vacuum of space, and experiencing extreme temperatures, Kearns added.

There is still a possibilty of the rover to be re-used in future mission, either partly or as a whole depending on if NASA could get into an agreement, Kearns was quoted saying.

In January, Astrobotic launched the Peregrine lander which did not reach the Moon. It is due to be launched in late 202, now with a “mass simulator” or heavy weight instead of a NASA rover.

United States is not falling behind China in term of space rivalry according to Kearns.

"We congratulate China's national space agency for the seemingly very successful Chang'e-6 mission," he said.

But he said that, with the partnership of space industry under the CLPS program, "we think that we're going to have a more robust science program and a more robust lunar landing capability in the United States."