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VIPER is planned for delivery to the lunar surface in late 2024 under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative. During its 100-day mission VIPER will travel several miles, over crater rims and occasionally into permanently shadowed craters – which are one of the coldest places in our solar system – to sample different kinds of lunar soils and environments
VIPER will be NASA’s first robotic Moon rover. It will embark on a mission to the lunar South Pole region to trek into permanently shadowed areas and unravel the mysteries of the Moon’s water. VIPER will be the first rover to measure the location and concentration of water ice and other resources. These resources could eventually be harvested to sustain human exploration on the Moon, Mars — and beyond!
VIPER represents the first resource mapping mission on another celestial body and will deepen our understanding of how frozen water and other volatiles are distributed on the Moon, their cosmic origin, and what has kept them preserved in the lunar soil for billions of years.
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