{"id":21599,"date":"2025-02-05T14:00:04","date_gmt":"2025-02-05T15:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=21599"},"modified":"2025-02-05T15:25:22","modified_gmt":"2025-02-05T15:25:22","slug":"nasa-gave-up-a-ride-to-the-moon-this-startups-rover-took-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=21599","title":{"rendered":"NASA Gave Up a Ride to the Moon. This Startup\u2019s Rover Took It."},"content":{"rendered":"
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After the space agency canceled its VIPER rover, an empty space was available on a private spacecraft that will still head to the lunar surface.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s like a confusing game of musical chairs for spacecraft.<\/p>\n

Originally, the plan was straightforward: NASA wanted to send a rover<\/a> to look for frozen water near the moon\u2019s south pole<\/a>. It hired a private company, Astrobotic Technology of Pittsburgh, to provide the spacecraft to land the rover on the moon\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n

The space agency\u2019s strategy increasingly taps new entrepreneurial space companies<\/a> to provide faster, cheaper solutions<\/a> than what the agency could do itself.<\/p>\n

But then in January last year, Astrobotic\u2019s first lunar mission using a smaller lander failed to reach the moon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Then, in July, NASA officials announced that they were canceling the ice-seeking mission<\/a> known as the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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NASA\u2019s second thoughts about VIPER opened an opportunity for someone else to book that ride to the moon. Just because its cargo was canceled did not mean Astrobotic\u2019s journey was off \u2014 it remains scheduled for later this year. And on Wednesday, a small startup named Venturi Astrolab Inc. announced it had claimed that opportunity to accelerate its own lunar rover plans.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re excited to get actual wheels in the dirt this year and see how all our tech performs,\u201d Jaret Matthews, the chief executive of Astrolab, said in an interview. (Despite the similar names, the two companies are unrelated.)<\/p>\n

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After the space agency canceled its VIPER rover, an empty space was available on a private spacecraft that will still head to the lunar surface.It\u2019s like a confusing game of musical chairs for spacecraft.Originally, the plan was straightforward: NASA wanted to send a rover to look for frozen water near the moon\u2019s south pole. It hired a private company, Astrobotic Technology of Pittsburgh, to provide the spacecraft to land the rover on the moon\u2019s surface.The space agency\u2019s strategy increasingly taps new entrepreneurial space companies to provide faster, cheaper solutions than what the agency could do itself.But then in January last year, Astrobotic\u2019s first lunar mission using a smaller lander failed to reach the moon.Then, in July, NASA officials announced that they were canceling the ice-seeking mission known as the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER.NASA\u2019s second thoughts about VIPER opened an opportunity for someone else to book that ride to the moon. Just because its cargo was canceled did not mean Astrobotic\u2019s journey was off \u2014 it remains scheduled for later this year. And on Wednesday, a small startup named Venturi Astrolab Inc. announced it had claimed that opportunity to accelerate its own lunar rover plans.\u201cWe\u2019re excited to get actual wheels in the dirt this year and see how all our tech performs,\u201d Jaret Matthews, the chief executive of Astrolab, said in an interview. (Despite the similar names, the two companies are unrelated.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21601,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21599"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21602,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21599\/revisions\/21602"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}