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Lee esta nota de prensa en espa\u00f1ol\u00a0aqu\u00ed.<\/em><\/p>\n The public now has a live, front row seat to see NASA\u2019s first robotic Moon rover take shape in the Surface Segment Integration and Testing Facility clean room at the agency\u2019s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Members of\u00a0VIPER\u00a0\u2014 short for the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover \u2014 and the Office of Communications at NASA\u2019s Ames Research Center in California\u2019s Silicon Valley, will host watch parties and answer questions from the public about the mission in both English and Spanish.\u00a0<\/p>\n These webchats and watch parties will occur as the rover is assembled and tested, approximately once a month from November 2023 through January 2024 . In late 2024, VIPER will embark on a mission to the lunar South Pole to trek into permanently shadowed areas and unravel the mysteries of the Moon\u2019s water.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re really excited for people to see the VIPER rover hardware coming together,\u201d said Daniel Andrews, the VIPER mission project manager at NASA Ames. \u201cAll of our planning and ideas are now going into building this first-of-its-kind Moon rover.\u201d<\/p>\n Individual components such as the rover\u2019s science instruments, lights, and wheels, have already been assembled and tested. Once delivered to the testing facility, other components will be integrated together to become the approximately 1,000-pound VIPER.<\/p>\n Months of final assembly and testing lie ahead before VIPER is ready to ship to the Astrobotic Payload Processing Facility in Florida in mid-2024. VIPER\u2019s lunar landing atop\u00a0Mons Mouton\u00a0is scheduled for late-2024, where it will\u00a0get a close-up view of the lunar surface and measure the location and concentration of water ice and other resources. Using its drill and three science instruments, researchers will gain a better understanding of\u00a0how 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.\u00a0VIPER will also inform future\u00a0Artemis missions by helping to characterize the lunar environment and help determine locations where water and other resources could be harvested to sustain humans for extended missions.<\/p>\n NASA Ames manages the VIPER mission and also leads the mission\u2019s science, systems engineering, real-time rover surface operations, and the rover\u2019s flight software. The rover vehicle is being designed and built by NASA\u2019s Johnson Space Center in Houston, while the instruments are provided by Ames, Kennedy Space Center in Florida and commercial partner Honeybee Robotics in Altadena, California. The spacecraft, lander, and launch vehicle that will deliver VIPER to the surface of the Moon will be provided through NASA\u2019s\u00a0Commercial Lunar Payload Services\u00a0initiative, delivering science and technology payloads to and near the Moon.<\/p>\n For more information about VIPER visit:<\/p>\n