Author Topic: SpaceX will launch Astrobotic lander to the moon with NASA's ice-sniffing VIPER rover  (Read 429 times)

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Offline Elderberry

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Space.com By Elizabeth Howell 4/14/2021

NASA has a launcher for its ice-hunting rover that will land on the moon in 2023.

SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket — the same booster type that once sent the "Starman" mannequin to space in a Tesla Roadster — will send the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) to the moon, on private company Astrobotic's lunar landing system.

Astrobotic's contract with NASA required the Pennsylvania-based company to independently select a launch contractor, and it chose SpaceX through a competitive procurement.

As with previous Falcon Heavy missions, SpaceX will launch VIPER from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center near Orlando, Florida — a longtime launching location of moon missions, including the Apollo missions between 1969 and 1972.

More: https://www.space.com/spacex-falcon-heavy-launching-astrobotic-moon-lander

Offline thackney

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More info:

A lunar water reconnaissance mission
https://science.nasa.gov/science-pink/s3fs-public/atoms/files/09-Colaprete-VIPER%20Overview%20for%20PAC%2008172020.pdf
Anthony Colaprete, VIPER Project Science
August 17, 2020
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