An expensive lunar rover that once had its moon trip canceled has a ride once again.

NASA has selected Blue Origin to help get VIPER, the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, to the moon by awarding Jeff Bezos’ company a task order under its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program.

VIPER was once supposed to be the primary payload of Astrobotic’s yet-to-fly Griffin lander with a 2023 launch date for under $200 million. But NASA canceled that mission in 2024 after the costs for both the rover construction and adjustments to the Astrobotic contract ballooned to nearly $800 million and the launch date continued to slip.

But now VIPER is back with a ride on Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 1 robotic lander, which also has yet to fly. NASA’s task order is worth up to $190 million for what would be Blue Origin’s second CLPS contract. The first, also using the MK1 lander is still on the clock to launch to the moon’s south pole with a pair of NASA assets along for the ride later in 2025 on a New Glenn rocket from Cape Canaveral, according to NASA.

VIPER is also headed for the south pole with a goal of actively mapping resources for potential mining, including ice, while collecting science data for future lunar and Mars exploration efforts by the agency.

“NASA is leading the world in exploring more of the moon than ever before, and this delivery is just one of many ways we’re leveraging U.S. industry to support a long-term American presence on the lunar surface,” said acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy in a press release.

The VIPER rover will be unlike the Mars rovers NASA has managed the last three decades. It will need to withstand a 500-degree Fahrenheit temperature swing between sunlight and shade on the moon, and to that end, be the first rover with headlights as it will be exploring inside dark craters that never see the sun.

“Our rover will explore the extreme environment of the lunar south pole, traveling to small, permanently shadowed regions to help inform future landing sites for our astronauts and better understand the moon’s environment — important insights for sustaining humans over longer missions, as America leads our future in space,” Duffy said.

The plan is to launch in late 2027 with a second MK1 lander, which Blue Origin stated was already under production.

The VIPER hardware has been sitting idle with an uncertain future, although NASA after canceling its Astrobotic ride said it would try and find an alternate way to get to the moon.

“NASA is committed to studying and exploring the moon, including learning more about water on the lunar surface, to help determine how we can harness local resources for future human exploration,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.

Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic was the first CLPS mission to manage a launch in 2024, but its Peregrine lander suffered propulsion issues and never had a chance to make it to the moon. Since then, Houston-based Intuitive Machines has tried twice and managed two lunar landings, but both had landing issues that limited mission success. Only Texas’ Firefly Aerospace has had a clean mission with its Blue Ghost mission earlier this year, although landing in a less harsh part of the moon in terms of terrain.

Astrobotic’s Griffin still has a contract to launch, and remains on NASA’s schedule to fly this year, but the company has not signaled progress lately. Intuitive Machines, Firefly and Draper all have several other CLPS missions to the moon in the next few years.

“We’ve been looking for creative, cost-effective approaches to accomplish these exploration goals,” Fox said. “This private sector-developed landing capability enables this delivery and focuses our investments accordingly – supporting American leadership in space and ensuring our long-term exploration is robust and affordable.”

For Blue Origin, NASA’s task order asks the company to design its lander to accommodate VIPER specifically and show how it would offload the rover onto the lunar surface. NASA said it will only exercise the contract to actually do the mission to deploy the rover after Blue Origin completes its first MK1 lander mission for NASA.

If it makes it to the moon, it has a 100-day mission across 12 miles that will take it through three lunar day and night cycles.

VIPER has a 1-meter drill and three measurement instruments to detect distribution, physical state and composition of the ice deposits. Communicating with the rover will be much easier and more real-time than the Mars missions, and its design will allow it to both roll and crawl at a top speed of .5 mph over what is really an unknown terrain.

As a customer, NASA will rely on Blue Origin to provide the ride, handle payload integration, manage planning and support, provide communication as well as handle deployment. NASA will manage the rover once it’s out of the lander.

Its goal of finding volatiles is in support of NASA’s Artemis missions. Finding frozen water, which could be broken down into its component oxygen and hydrogen compounds to provide life-sustaining air and potential fuel, has been the driving force behind NASA’s lunar plans.

“The search for lunar volatiles plays a key role in NASA’s exploration of the mMoon, with important implications for both science and human missions under Artemis,” said Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration and NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “This delivery could show us where ice is most likely to be found and easiest to access, as a future resource for humans.”

Kearns said the data could be key to NASA efforts beyond the moon.

“By studying these sources of lunar water, we also gain valuable insight into the distribution and origin of volatiles across the solar system, helping us better understand the processes that have shaped our space environment and how our inner solar system has evolved,” he said.