The Relevance of the VIPER Mission to NASA’s Artemis Human Exploration of the Moon

NASA has ambitious plans to send astronauts to the south polar region of the Moon and explore this lunar terrain with humans for the first time through a series of Artemis missions. The goals of Artemis are to provide economic benefits, drive technological advancement, and inspire the next generation of explorers. Artemis presents a unique opportunity for humans to conduct high-priority planetary science in situ in the south polar region of the Moon. Prior to human exploration, landed robotic precursor investigations can provide valuable information to reduce risk and maximize discovery and productivity of subsequent crewed missions. NASA’s Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) is a robotic mission designed to explore and characterize its landing region near the lunar south pole prior to crewed Artemis landed missions. VIPER is designed to explore multiple thermal regimes to characterize the lunar polar environment and regolith properties, and to explore for surface and subsurface ices. Each of these objectives is key for both scientific investigation and to detect and assess volatile deposits to support in situ resource utilization and a sustained human presence on the Moon. VIPER will also operate with a real-time mission operations architecture with relevance and feed forward to Artemis crewed operations on the lunar surface. VIPER will provide key information regarding the lunar environment, scientific exploration, technologies, and real-time operations to optimize the valuable surface exploration time of Artemis crew members while simultaneously reducing risk to crew and increasing health and human safety on the lunar surface.