Why is NASA canceling VIPER?
It comes down to money and NASA science’s lack thereof.
VIPER was budgeted to cost $505 million to build and operate for 100 days on the lunar surface, including surviving multiple 14-day lunar nights. However, VIPER’s assembly was delayed due to supply chain shortages, and its ride on Astrobotic’s next-generation Griffin lunar lander was delayed at least a year to the fall of 2025. NASA estimated this would add another $104 million to the cost of the project over the next two years, money that the beleaguered Science Mission Directorate simply does not have. Agency representatives stated that, by canceling the project now, NASA will save $84 million over the next two years.
While $84 million may not seem like much for an agency with a $25 billion annual budget, the Science Mission Directorate (SMD), which funds robotic missions such as VIPER, is facing a severe budgetary shortfall. Furthermore, cost overruns are not spread evenly across the agency: the money would have to come from the Planetary Science Division, specifically from the Lunar Discovery and Exploration Program (LDEP) — VIPER’s budgetary home.
VIPER was already planned to receive $33 million in FY 2025 to wrap up development and operate the mission on the Moon. This means the cost difference of a one-year delay is $71 million, which would be spread out over two fiscal years if the launch occurred in the fall of 2025. Based on projections from NASA’s FY 2025 budget request, $20 million of this would be for operations and program closeout in FY 2026, leaving an additional $51 million necessary to continue the project in 2025.
From the perspective of NASA’s science leadership, however, finding $51 million in the existing budget presents some impossible choices. Within LDEP, the only significant sources of funding available for VIPER would be to reduce the politically popular Commercial Lunar Payload Services program (CLPS), cut funding to scientific instrument development for CLPS missions, or cut funds for science instrumentation for upcoming Artemis missions. None of these were deemed acceptable tradeoffs.