{"id":17687,"date":"2020-06-11T17:09:05","date_gmt":"2020-06-11T09:09:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/nasa-picks-astrobotic-to-deliver-its-viper-rover-to-lunar-south-pole-for-nearly-200m\/"},"modified":"2020-06-11T17:09:05","modified_gmt":"2020-06-11T09:09:05","slug":"nasa-picks-astrobotic-to-deliver-its-viper-rover-to-lunar-south-pole-for-nearly-200m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/nasa-picks-astrobotic-to-deliver-its-viper-rover-to-lunar-south-pole-for-nearly-200m\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA picks Astrobotic to deliver its VIPER rover to lunar south pole for nearly $200M"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe title=\"NASA Moon Rover Books Ride to the Moon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/S9Y6n1G5hhc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>NASA has awarded a $199.5 million contract to Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic to deliver its VIPER rover to the moon\u2019s south pole in 2023, marking one more not-so-small step for the commercialization of lunar exploration.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>VIPER, which stands for Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, will conduct a detailed on-the-ground assessment of water ice buried in lunar soil. In the years and decades ahead, NASA hopes that frozen H<sub>2<\/sub>O could be converted into drinkable water, breathable oxygen and hydrogen fuel for crewed missions.<\/li>\n<li>Last year, NASA chose Astrobotic to deliver up to 14 smaller payloads to the lunar surface on its Peregrine lander in 2021, with United Launch Alliance\u2019s next-generation Vulcan rocket serving as the launch vehicle. For the 2023 mission, Astrobotic will use its larger Griffin lander; the launch vehicle hasn\u2019t yet been selected.<\/li>\n<li>In a statement, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said VIPER will provide a \u201cbig boost\u201d for the Artemis program to start sending astronauts to the moon by as early as 2024. Astrobotic CEO John Thornton said the mission could have longer-term implications as well, calling it \u201cpotentially a massive breakthrough for commercial opportunity in space.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NASA has awarded a $199.5 million contract to Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic to deliver its VIPER rover to the moon\u2019s south pole in 2023, marking one more not-so-small step for the commercialization of lunar exploration. VIPER, which stands for Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, will conduct a detailed on-the-ground assessment of water ice buried in lunar soil. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[697,291,2043,625,190,4420],"class_list":["post-17687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-astrobotic","tag-commercial-space","tag-lunar-lander","tag-moon","tag-nasa","tag-viper-rover"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17687"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17687\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}