Intuitive Machines is considering taking over the four-wheeled lunar rover after NASA canceled plans for a trip to the moon due to budget constraints.
The Houston-based company is finalizing responses to NASA’s interest in organizations that want to help with its effort to send a rover to the moon’s surface, company executives said on a recent earnings call. NASA would provide the surface rover itself, and the selected company or organization would do all the remaining work and conduct a lunar landing mission to address some or all of the science goals.
VIPER (Volatile Exploration Polar Rover) was designed to discover and study water ice on the moon’s south pole. The $450 million mission was scheduled to launch in September 2025 aboard Astrobotic’s Griffin lander, which was to deliver the rover to the lunar surface under a Commercial Lunar Payload Services task order. The mission has suffered several supply chain delays, and NASA recently decided to cancel VIPER’s trip to the moon, citing concerns that it could disrupt other commercial lunar payload missions.
When NASA first broke the news, they said they would dismantle the VIPER rover and use its parts for future missions, but the decision sparked outrage in the scientific community over the loss of the precious robot, prompting NASA to suddenly put out a call for organizations to take the lunar robot and send it to the moon.
Intuitive Machines has taken up the challenge and is currently working with other companies, research institutions and international partners to respond to NASA’s request for information, SpaceNews reported, based on the earnings call. “Our position is that the science from VIPER is critical to lunar scientists, the future of the Artemis program and the exploration of volatiles and water ice in the soil,” Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Artemas was quoted as saying in the earnings call.
The company is no stranger to the moon. Intuitive Machines launched the Odysseus lander in February as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. The lunar lander successfully touched down on the moon’s surface, but the landing wasn’t smooth. One of Odysseus’ legs appears to have gotten stuck during its descent, causing it to fall sideways and possibly end up lying on a rock.
Hopefully, VIPER will fare better. During the conference call, Intuitive Machines officials revealed that the lunar rover could be carried aboard the company’s upcoming Nova-D lander, which is currently in development. The rover is scheduled to launch in late 2027.
NASA has completed much of the work to build the robot, but has made it clear that it will not commit any further funds to the canceled lunar mission. “It is the intent of any collaboration to incur minimal to no additional costs to NASA,” NASA wrote in its RFI. Additionally, if Intuitive Machines is selected to take over VIPER, it would like NASA to cover the costs of any functions, including additional testing of the rover, preparing the payload, and supporting the science team.
NASA has turned to the private sector for help before: In 2018, the space agency canceled plans for another lunar rover with a similar mission, the Lunar Resource Prospector (LRP), but after launching the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, NASA committed to flying the LRP on future private lunar missions.
The news of VIPER’s cancellation was similarly disappointing, but hopefully both missions will culminate in a moon landing in the future.
Read more: How a small team at Intuitive Machines is solving big lunar challenges
