VIPER Rover

January 13, 2024

NASA has invited people to send their names to the surface of the Moon aboard the agency’s first robotic lunar rover VIPER– short for Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover.
In its mission to the lunar South Pole, the rover will study the Moon’s water and understand the environment where it plans to land the first woman and first person of color under its Artemis program.
In late 2024, Astrobotic Technologies’ Griffin Mission One is scheduled to deliver VIPER to the lunar surface after launching aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
Once there, VIPER will rely on its solar panels and batteries for its roughly 100-day mission to survive extreme temperatures and challenging lighting conditions, while powering a suite of science instruments designed to gather data about the characteristics and concentrations of lunar ice and other possible resources.
NASA will use the data the rover collects to show where the Moon’s ice is most likely to be found and easiest to access, making VIPER the first-ever resource mapping mission on another celestial body.