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: it would not be sending its $450 million rover, called the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover , to the Moon, where its state-of-the-art capabilities were anticipated to uncover secrets about water ice beneath the lunar surface., is that VIPER's costs had ballooned. The rover was already fully built, but it was deemed too expensive to conduct further crucial tests that would prove it was spaceworthy.
"We are deeply concerned by NASA's shocking announcement on July 17 that it intends to discontinue the VIPER lunar rover mission," thereads. "VIPER was to be a groundbreaking American project and the first NASA mission to characterize the origin and distribution of water ice on and below the surface of the Moon.
"I was shocked and dismayed... This is maybe the most important mission for developing cislunar space that NASA has ever designed," planetary scientist Phil Metzger of the University of Central Florida "No other robotic U.S. mission to the moon in the next three years has the and a way to explore the subsurface, not just the surface," heVIPER had been beset with setbacks for years leading up to the decision. It was originally slated to launch in 2023, but the COVID pandemic hamstrung that timeline.
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