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NASA picks Astrobotic to deliver its water-hunting robot rover to the Moon

NASA has selected a company to fly its VIPER Moon rover to the Moon, for a mission which will be a crucial step in its Artemis program as it will help the agency determine where and how it can establish a long-term presence on the lunar surface. NASA announced on Thursday that Astrobotic will be its commercial partner in delivering the payload, with the mission currently scheduled for a 2023 Moon surface landing.

VIPER stands for ‘Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover,’ and the roughly golf cart-sized robotic rover will be scouring the Moon’s South Pole region for water ice, as well as water beneath the surface, if it exists. This is a key intermediary step for the Artemis program, which still intends to return the next American man and the first American woman to the lunar surface by 2024. Having a handy source of water will be an important part of establishing any long-term sustainable base on the Moon, since it can provide the necessary ingredients for a self-contained lunar fuel production facility.

NASA’s choice of Astrobotic for this mission is not surprising, since the agency has already contracted Astrobotic as part of its Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. The company is set to transport scientific payloads to the lunar surface aboard its Peregrine lander for its first CLPS mission in 2021, using a ULA Vulcan rocket to get to the Moon. This is a separate contract, which as mentioned is timed for a 2023 window.

Astrobotic will be using its Griffin lander for this VIPER mission, not Peregrine. Griffin is a much larger lander than Peregrine, standing roughly 6.5-feet tall, with the ability to carry payloads up to over 1,000 lbs. It can land with accuracy to within 100 meters of a specific target, and can detect and avoid hazards as small as 15 cm across.

Render of Astrobotic’s Griffin lander.

Viper will essentially max out the payload capacity of Griffin, since the rover will have a mass of approximately 1,000 lbs when complete. It’ll be outfitted with three water-hunting sensors that will fly on board earlier payload delivery missions to the Moon in 2021 and 2022 for testing, and also a drill capable of piercing up to three feet below the lunar surface.

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