Blue Origin wins NASA deal to ferry VIPER rover to lunar south pole

On Friday, Blue Origin won a large NASA declaration to present a lunar rover to the moon, a beardown ballot of assurance successful some the Blue Moon lander and the aboriginal of quality exploration.

The declaration besides means that the VIPER rover volition yet spot the lunar aboveground aft NASA shelved the full programme past twelvemonth owed to delays and outgo overruns.

Under the deal, Blue Origin volition transportation VIPER – abbreviated for “Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover” – connected its uncrewed Blue Moon Mk1 lander. Separately, NASA has awarded the institution a human-rated lander declaration nether Artemis, but that programme is chiseled from this mission.

This caller grant was granted nether NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services task bid for astir $190 million. Blue Moon Mk1 is targeting a tract adjacent the lunar southbound pole, wherever scientists fishy determination are important stores of h2o ice. VIPER volition drill down into the aboveground to trial that hypothesis.

The determination closes an uncertain section for VIPER. The bureau archetypal selected Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic successful 2020 to present the rover connected its Griffin lander, an grant initially valued astatine $199.5 million. After delays connected some the rover and lander, NASA canceled VIPER successful July 2024, citing ballooning costs, adjacent though overmuch of the hardware was already built.

The determination drew disapproval from lawmakers and scientists. One period later, NASA issued a petition for ideas from U.S. companies to research ways to enactment the existing rover to enactment without adding further costs to the government.

For Blue Origin, this triumph is important: this grant gives the cargo workhorse lander its archetypal high-profile technological payload and pins it to a schedule, precocious 2027. It besides marks a 2nd large NASA endorsement of the company’s lunar ambitions aft the Human Landing System contract.

About the size of a play cart, VIPER volition walk astir 100 days connected the lunar surface, driving around, prospecting and drilling to representation h2o crystal deposits. The rover is equipped with respective instruments, including the drill and 3 spectrometers designed to observe water, hydrogen and different minerals.

The results are cardinal to NASA’s aboriginal subject goals and to immoderate semipermanent quality beingness connected the moon, wherever extracting resources in-situ – alternatively than hauling them from Earth – volition beryllium critical. Ice could 1 time beryllium turned into drinking water, oxygen, and adjacent rocket propellant.