NASA will spend about $800 million to not send a robotic rover to the moon. The rover, known as the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER, is already built. The launch is still scheduled to take place late next year, but VIPER will not be aboard. However, delays with both the VIPER rover and the privately built spacecraft that was to have landed the rover on the moon’s surface led to uncertainty about the mission’s timeline. “Decisions like we’ve been discussing today are extremely difficult to make,” Nicola Fox, the associate administrator for NASA’s science mission directorate, said during a news conference.

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Persons: we’ve, ” Nicola Fox, ” Organizations: NASA, Exploration Rover