Astrobotic Will Send a Lander to the Lunar South Pole Using Falcon Heavy
takyon writes:
Astrobotic selects Falcon Heavy to launch NASA's VIPER lunar rover
Astrobotic has signed a contract with SpaceX for the launch of its Griffin lunar lander, carrying a NASA lunar rover, on a Falcon Heavy in 2023.
Astrobotic announced April 13 that it selected SpaceX's Falcon Heavy for its Griffin Mission 1 lunar lander mission, which will deliver the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) spacecraft to the south pole of the moon in late 2023. Astrobotic won a NASA competition through the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program last year to transport VIPER on its Griffin lunar lander.
[...] VIPER is a NASA mission to investigate permanently shadowed regions of craters at the lunar south pole that may contain deposits of water ice that could serve as resources for future crewed missions. It is designed to operate for 100 days after landing.
NASA originally planned to launch VIPER in 2022, with a mission cost of $250 million. However, NASA postponed the launch to late 2023 to provide more time for work to increase VIPER's mission life from 14 to 100 days. That, in turn, drove up the cost of VIPER to $433.5 million, NASA disclosed in March.
Previously: Astrobotic to Use "CubeRover" to Explore the Moon
NASA Selects Three Companies to Land Science Payloads on the Moon
MoonRanger Robotic Rover Will Seek out Water on the Moon
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