There are several “gate reviews” in which a NASA mission must pass to demonstrate it is ready to move to the next phase of development. The Critical Design Review, or CDR, is the point in a project’s development where the design of a system is complete. This is the “pencils down” moment, where we are done designing a system to meet the specified requirements. Now we turn our attention to manufacturing and procuring the parts needed to turn that design into a working, functioning robot!
VIPER has worked against a challenging schedule, made more challenging during a global pandemic when the majority of the team has been working virtually from home. Further, we’ve been pathfinding a new interface to a commercial provider who will deliver VIPER to the surface of the Moon via Astrobotic and the Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative, or CLPS.
This remarkable VIPER team continues to impress, evolving from an early exploratory mission concept into a complete science flight mission. In the end, VIPER will write the books on the nature and location of water and other resources on the Moon.
Go VIPER!
– Dan Andrews, VIPER Project Manager