NASA has a launcher for its ice hunter that will land on the moon in 2023.
SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket – the same booster type that sent the “Starman” doll into space in a Tesla Roadster – will send the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) to the moon on the private enterprise’s lunar landing system Astrobotic.
Astrobotic’s contract with NASA required the company to independently select a pilot contractor in Pennsylvania, and he selected SpaceX through a competitive acquisition.
As with previous Falcon Heavy missions, SpaceX will launch VIPER from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center near Orlando, Florida – a long-standing launch site of lunar missions, including the Apollo missions between 1969 and 1972.
Related: NASA selects SpaceX Falcon Heavy to launch the first Gateway station pieces to the moon
VIPER is a key element of NASA’s long-term plans to plant humans on the moon later in the decade – as soon as 2024 as the Donald Trump era deadline remains under the new presidential administration of Joe Biden. In the NASA Artemis program, crews will work with robotics to explore the moon and its resources, using NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.
Main among the goals of the Artemis program is to learn how to live sustainably from the moon, and possibly use resources such as lunar water ice at the south pole of the moon to make astronauts and machinery function adequately for longer missions on the lunar surface. Humans last visited the moon during the Apollo missions, but stayed only a few days at a time, bringing everything they needed from Earth.
“Gaining better knowledge of resources on the moon is crucial to advancing humanity’s reach beyond Earth, and we are honored to support this exciting mission and NASA’s CLPS program,” he said. Stephanie Bednarek, SpaceX senior director of commercial sales, said in a statement.
Astrobotic received a mission from NASA in 2020 to send VIPER to the same region as the first planned lunar landing mission with astronauts, called Artemis 3, in the lunar region of the moon. The mission plan requires the Falcon Heavy Astrobotic’s Griffin lunar lander to run to the moon; Griffin will then touch the surface and provide a platform from which VIPER can descend to move around autonomously.
No American hardware has landed gently on the moon for decades, but VIPER could be Astrobotic’s second attempt as its peregrine lander becomes safe in July at Lacus Mortis, a hexagonal plain on the near side of the moon. Peregrine would, if successful, be the first commercial American lander on the moon – and the first American spacecraft that has not hit at all since Apollo 17 in 1972.
For VIPER, Astrobotic said it was looking for a ‘complete mission solution’ to make sure all pieces of the launch and landing process are ready to bring the rover to the South Pole.
“SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy completes our … solution by providing a proven launch vehicle that can transport us to the moon on our orbit. SpaceX has the team, vehicle and facilities to make it happen,” said Daniel Gillies, mission director of Astrobotic, in the same statement.
The Griffin lunar lander is going through qualification tests and should be done with the process by the end of 2021, Astrobotic said in the statement. Griffin will be a solid lander who can carry the £ 1000. (450 kilograms) VIPER; Astrobotic’s overall fixed cost contract with NASA for the mission amounts to $ 199.5 million, covering everything from launch to landing.
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