Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

“Wait-a-minute”
Image credit: Barbara David

UPDATE: NASA’s Moon News: VIPER CANCELLED

Go to NASA announcement at:

https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-ends-viper-project-continues-moon-exploration/

“VIPER is 100% built and has completed part of its testing. It is ready to go and NASA is junking a very capable rover and ceding leadership in resource exploration. It is a dark day for lunar science and exploration and maybe the Artemis program,” responds Clive Neal, a lunar exploration expert at the University of Notre Dame.

Posted earlier:

In wait-a-minute style, the Moon exploration community is holding its collective breath for the news stemming from today’s “Exploration Science Program Update” by NASA.

Nobody is quite sure what’s coming, but on the rocket docket is Nicola Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters.

Perhaps a tip on things to come, joining Fox is NASA’s Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration, Science Mission Directorate.

Kearns also leads the Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative, the CLPS space agency/private sector activity.

Oh dear, caught in the headlights? NASA’s VIPER Moon rover?

There is some speculation that an update will be given on the status of CLPS, particularly the NASA contracted Astrobotic delivery of the agency’s Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER).

VIPER bite?

VIPER is a key part of NASA’s Artemis lunar exploration plan, a robotic endeavor in search of Moon ice and other potential resources.

Astrobotic is on tap to use its Griffin lunar lander to deliver VIPER to the Moon’s south pole, supposedly by year’s end. But the company experienced a rough-and-tumble start with CLPS.

In January of this year, the Astrobotic Peregrine Mission One to the Moon failed due to an in-space propulsion glitch.

Earth’s Moon as viewed from the International Space Station.
Image credit: NASA

So, perhaps, news on the whereabouts and timing of a VIPER sendoff?

Then, on the other hand, maybe no.

But stay tuned later today for some sort of Moon news.