Moon Water: NASA Cancels VIPER, China Makes Discovery

The race to the moon is on, with space agencies eager to establish a presence on Earth's natural satellite as a stepping stone to Mars. A crucial component for sustaining life and enabling further exploration? Water.

NASA's VIPER: Cancelled Amid Delays and Rising Costs

• NASA's Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER, was designed to study water ice on the moon's south pole, with a price tag of half a billion dollars.
• Delays pushed the launch date from 2023 to 2025, and on July 17, NASA cancelled the project, citing rising costs and potential disruptions to commercial payload missions.
• In response, the Planetary Society circulated a letter signed by over 1,000 individuals urging Congress to intervene, calling NASA's decision "unprecedented and indefensible."
• NASA has offered a chance for commercial space companies to submit proposals to save the project, and lawmakers may also intervene to reverse the decision.

China's Lunar Discovery: Water in Physical Lunar Samples

• As NASA struggled with VIPER, Chinese scientists announced the discovery of water in its molecular form (H2O) in lunar soil samples brought back by the Chang’e-5 probe in 2020.
• The findings, published in Nature, are a potential breakthrough for China, which hopes to send astronauts to the moon by 2030 and recently launched the Chang’e-6 probe to explore the far side of the moon.
• China's recent achievements include the completion of the Tiangong orbital space station, a rival to the International Space Station.

NASA's Artemis Program: Delays and Controversy

• NASA's Artemis program, the US's first lunar program since Apollo, aims to return astronauts to the lunar surface and establish a base ahead of Mars missions.
• Artemis has faced [delays and controversy](https://www.cnet.com/news/nasa-artemis-moon-mission-delay-spacesuits- SLS-rocket-perseverance-rover-mars/) due to concerns about scope and cost, with Artemis II and III missions delayed by at least a year due to issues including a battery flaw.
• Preparations continue, with SpaceX testing the Starship rocket for future lunar missions and NASA awarding the company a $2.9 billion contract for its Artemis III mission.
• NASA is also working with private companies to design lunar vehicles and carry scientific payloads to the moon, with the Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment-1 (PRIME-1) scheduled to land at the south pole by 2024 to search for water ice.

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