Astrobotic has both the Peregrine and Griffin landers. The Peregrine is smaller and failed early on it's initial mission, as in failed to survive launch loads.AtticusMatlock said:
If this is the same mission and I'm remembering correctly, NASA Ames had a rover built (VIPER) and basically ready to go for this mission. Astrobotic was late developing their part of the mission. This caused the NASA rover to go over budget. The completed rover was ordered to be scrapped due to strict interpretation of the NASA budgeting rules. The Griffin was going to fly with a dummy payload instead. That's the government for you.
Perhaps it was somehow saved but as of last summer it was ready for the scrap heap.
As such, NASA didn't want to spend more money completing and operating VIPER on an even larger and more complicated lander from the same company.
But as usual with NASA, VIPER was over budget and NASA didn't want to divert other funds from it. They WERE going to scrap it but got a lot of pushback.
Now, they are on Phase II of soliciting companies to take VIPER to the moon and operate it at no cost to NASA.
This would essentially be a losing proposition for any company that takes it, but would boost their profile or give them a payload to use to prove out new technology.
https://spacenews.com/nasa-requests-industry-proposals-for-viper-lunar-rover-partnership/
Quote:
NASA is following a two-step approach to this competition. The agency is requesting "Step 1" proposals where companies would outline their approach to flying VIPER and achieving its science goals. While a NASA statement said the proposals were due Feb. 20, the procurement documents themselves state the deadline is March 3.
The agency will review those proposals and, within a week, inform which companies that will be invited to submit a more detailed Step 2 proposal, offering additional information on their technical approach for VIPER as well as schedule, management and funding plans. The Step 2 proposals will be due May 2, with NASA planning to select a company within 30 days. NASA will then enter into a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement, or CRADA, with that company to fly VIPER.
NASA does not intend to provide any funding to the selected company. "NASA will provision the VIPER rover hardware to the partner as-is," the announcement states. "Partner will be responsible for integrated testing with their lander and analysis, integration, launch, lunar transit, landing, rover roll-off/offload/disembarkment, and surface operations and dissemination of VIPER-generated science data in accordance with the terms of the resulting CRADA agreement."
