NASA’s much-anticipated but imperiled VIPER lunar rover got some good news today. More than a year after NASA announced it was terminating the mission even though the rover is completely built, it may have a second lease on life. NASA awarded a contract to Blue Origin to take initial steps that, if successful, could lead to VIPER flying on Blue Origin’s Blue Moon MK1 lander instead of Astrobotic’s Griffin.

Although NASA’s press release heralds “NASA Selects Blue Origin to Deliver VIPER Rover to the Moon’s South Pole,” the agency actually stopped short of committing to that. Instead it awarded Blue Origin a $190 million task order, CS-7, through the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative to take the first of two steps.

Blue Origin is “to design the payload-specific accommodations and to demonstrate how Blue Origin’s flight design will off-load the rover to the lunar surface.” Delivering VIPER is an option and NASA won’t decide whether to exercise that option until step one is completed. Nonetheless, they are targeting the landing for the end of 2027.

Blue Origin is already building the first Blue Moon MK1 lander through a previous CLPS contract. That launch is planned later this year and will deliver two NASA payloads, a lunar retroreflector and a SCALPSS camera.

The company is already an important part of VIPER. Blue Origin owns Honeybee Robotics, which built the TRIDENT drill, one of four scientific instruments on VIPER.  Blue Origin CEO David Limp said on X today they are looking forward to preparing VIPER for flight.

Looking forward to partnering with @NASA to prepare VIPER for flight on our second MK1 lunar lander. VIPER is incredibly important, including instruments to help search for resources like ice. This includes our Honeybee Robotics TRIDENT drill, designed to penetrate up to 3 ft, or… https://t.co/DQ7vitENDy

— Dave Limp (@davill) September 19, 2025

While less than a full commitment, today’s announcement is good news for the lunar science community, which was taken aback in July 2024 when NASA announced its intent to cancel VIPER. The agency had been lauding VIPER for years because of the important contributions it would make to the Artemis program.

VIPER, the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, is designed to roam around the lunar South Pole for 100 days searching for water ice with scientific instruments including Blue Origin’s 1-meter (3.3-foot) TRIDENT drill. Previous NASA probes have detected evidence that water, possibly deposited by comets over the eons, exists in permanently shadowed regions at the Moon’s poles. VIPER would be a step in creating the first lunar water resource map.

NASA cited cost growth over several years and concerns it would grow further if Astrobotic’s Griffin lander wasn’t ready by September 2025 as reasons for the decision. Astrobotic’s first lunar lander, Peregrine, never reached the Moon because of a propulsion system failure. Griffin is larger and this would be its first flight.

When then-NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine revealed VIPER at the 2019 International Astronautical Congress, the estimated cost was $250 million. By the time NASA was ready to make a cost commitment to Congress, it was $433.5 million with landing in 2023. That landing date slipped to 2024 with a cost of $505.4 million. By July 2024, it was $609.6 million if launched in September 2025, more than 30 percent above the commitment. That triggered an automatic cancellation review according to Joel Kearns, head of NASA’s Exploration Science Strategy and Integration Office (ESSIO). He noted that VIPER was hit hard by supply chain issues due to the COVID pandemic that persisted and led to delivery delays in critical components.

NASA already had spent $450 million on VIPER and would save only $84 million by canceling it, but they were concerned the Griffin lander wouldn’t be ready by September 2025 and the cost would grow even more. Astrobotic had been awarded a fixed price contract of $323 million to deliver VIPER to the lunar surface through CLPS. That’s on top of the $609.6 million. If the launch slipped past September 2025, NASA wouldn’t have to pay Astrobotic more, but would have to pay to keep the VIPER team together and the spacecraft in pristine condition.

Canceling the program at that point would mean wasting all the money spent to date, however, and saving comparatively little. NASA said it would pay Astrobotic the $323 million even though they won’t use Griffin.

The rover was already built and going through pre-launch tests. NASA agreed to pay to complete those tests — vibration, acoustic and thermal — and VIPER passed them all.

The lunar science community and Congress reacted negatively to the decision and NASA decided to issue a call for expressions of interest by organizations that might want to take over the project. It received 11 responses. In May 2025, Nicky Fox, the head of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said they were “opting to explore alternative approaches,” however.

Today’s announcement is that alternative approach. Fox said today:

“We’ve been looking for creative, cost-effective approaches to accomplish these exploration goals. 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.” – Nicky Fox

Under the CLPS program, companies design, build and launch lunar landers. NASA buys services from them to deliver NASA payloads. The companies are expected to find non-NASA customers to close the business case.  Four CLPS deliveries have been made so far. One (Firefly’s Blue Ghost) was a complete success.  The other three (Astrobotic’s Peregrine and two from Intuitive Machines) were less so. NASA counts them all as successes because “we always learn lessons that we can provide and use in the future” according to Fox.

Blue Origin separately is under contract to build one of the two Human Landing Systems (HLS) for Artemis — Blue Moon MK2. SpaceX’s Starship will be used for the first Artemis lunar landing, Artemis III. Trump Administration plans for the Artemis program after Artemis III are unclear, but the plan has been for Starship to be used for Artemis IV and Blue Moon MK2 for Artemis V.

Astrobotic said in an emailed statement today they had decided not to submit a bid, but are “heartened” to hear VIPER will make it to the Moon.

“Astrobotic believes in the deep scientific significance of NASA’s VIPER mission. We are heartened to hear it will have the opportunity to fly and potentially yield critical insights for the broader lunar community. Given the compressed timeline of the CS-7 mission and our commitments to existing customers, Astrobotic made the strategic decision not to submit a bid. Our focus remains on the successful delivery of our customer payloads aboard Griffin-1, and our third lander mission thereafter.”