NASA will spend about $800 million to not send a robotic rover to the moon. The rover, known as the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER, is already built.

In January NASA raised hopes that VIPER might somehow still see space when it put out a call for proposals for private aerospace companies to launch and operate the rover. On May 7, however, NASA ...

NASA hopes that the data collected by VIPER will help to shape future missions. “Knowing where resources like water-ice are located … as well as the conditions at those locations, will carry ...

NASA’s original plan for VIPER was to spend $433.5 million building the rover, with a target launch date in 2023. But to accommodate delays with the rover’s ride to the moon—a lander called ...

Canceling VIPER now will save NASA a minimum of $84 million. That could grow, he said, if VIPER’s launch were to slip beyond November 2025, ...

Back in November 2019, NASA announced plans to send a new rover to the moon. After nearly 5 years and multiple delays, however, it seems Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) won ...

Watch a prototype of NASA's Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, (VIPER) roll down a ramp to simulate its ...

VIPER, in which NASA has already invested $450 million, could be stripped and sold for parts. Or a commercial company could snap up the rover and commit some money to save the groundbreaking vehicle.

VIPER's mission was initially contracted in 2020 with a maximum value of $199.5 million, which was meant as a fixed-cost fee covering every aspect of launch and landing, NASA said at the time.

NASA is asking U.S. companies for proposals to move forward with the ice-hunting VIPER moon rover, a $450 million project the agency canceled last summer.

NASA selected Astrobotic to deliver VIPER to the moon’s surface via its lunar lander Griffin, expecting it to be more cost-effective than a NASA-built lander. VIPER was announced in 2019 at a ...

Ahead of those crewed missions, NASA had planned to send its robotic VIPER on a 100-day mission to explore the moon's south pole to locate, record and map images of water ice.