Blue Origin Wins Major NASA Contract to Deliver VIPER Rover to Lunar South Pole
Blue Origin Wins Major NASA Contract to Deliver VIPER Rover to Lunar South Pole
Blue Origin has secured a significant NASA contract to transport the VIPER lunar rover to the Moon’s south pole, marking a crucial endorsement for its Blue Moon lander and the future of lunar exploration. The deal ensures the VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover) mission will proceed, following its shelving last year by NASA due to mounting delays and costs.
Under the terms of the roughly $190 million Commercial Lunar Payload Services task order, Blue Origin will deploy VIPER aboard its uncrewed Blue Moon MK1 lander. This mission is distinct from Blue Origin’s human-rated lander contract under the Artemis program. The Blue Moon MK1 lander is slated to target a region near the lunar south pole, an area of high scientific interest due to suspected significant reserves of water ice. VIPER’s mission will involve drilling into the lunar surface to investigate and confirm this hypothesis.
This new award brings VIPER back from an uncertain future. NASA had initially selected Astrobotic in 2020 for the mission, but canceled the program in July 2024 citing ballooning costs, despite much of the rover’s hardware already being constructed. The decision had drawn criticism, leading NASA to seek new proposals to utilize the existing rover. For Blue Origin, this contract is pivotal, providing its cargo lander with its first high-profile scientific payload and setting a target launch schedule for late 2027. The golf cart-sized VIPER is designed to spend approximately 100 days on the lunar surface, prospecting and drilling to map water ice deposits, which are vital for future scientific goals and potential long-term human presence on the Moon.
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