LOS ANGELES— NASA is requesting concepts from companies and organizations willing to take over a robotic lunar rover that the agency announced last month it would cancel even through it is nearly complete.
NASA issued a request for information (RFI) Aug. 9 for the operation of the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) spacecraft. NASA announced July 17 it planned to cancel the rover, citing development delays and cost overruns amid broader budget pressures in the agency’s science programs.
When NASA announce the cancelation, it said it was seeking “expressions of interest” from companies, organizations and international partners who might be interested in taking over the rover. Those responses were due Aug. 1, and the agency received at least a dozen, according to industry sources.
The new RFI calls on U.S. companies and organizations interested in taking over VIPER to provide details about how they would use the rover. “Partner(s) would start with the existing VIPER rover and be expected to complete any remaining systems level testing, arrange for the integration and successful landing on the moon, conduct a science/exploration campaign, and openly disseminate science data,” the agency stated.
NASA asks those responding to the RFI to describe their own mission objectives for VIPER and how it would achieve at least some of NASA’s original science objectives as well as “other opportunistic value to NASA.” NASA also wants details about how the partner will carry out the mission, and what resources that partner would need from NASA on a reimbursable basis.
The agency made clear in the RFI that an organization seeking to take over VIPER would be expected to send the rover to the moon intact: “partners may not disassemble and use instruments/parts of VIPER separately from a VIPER mission.”
“We want to make the best use possible of the engineering, technology, and expertise that have…
Read the full article here
