NASA’s first robotic moon rover is officially coming together, and the team is building it on the moon.

“I am extremely excited … I am proud of the time and effort the team put into this achievement,” said David Petrie, head of systems integration and testing at Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER). The team recently began assembling the 1,000-pound rover at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Engineers installed the rover’s chassis subplate and subframe parts that will support the entire VIPER, from under the wheels to the tip of the headlights. Now they’re all resting on a set of risers on a custom lift table in Johnson’s cleanroom.

“We’ve completed the first few steps to integrate the rover components that will one day be on the surface of the moon,” Petrie said. Said. “Hardware comes in from all over the world, including some made at multiple NASA facilities, so it’s really time to get started.”

Over the next few months, engineers and technicians continue to accelerate, adding specialized science instruments such as avionics, power, telecommunications, engines, thermals and navigation systems, and subsystems to the rover, including a drill to do the heavy lifting. VIPER mission objectives. Once the integration is complete, they will put the finished rover through a series of functional, performance and operational stress tests, followed by vibration, acoustic and thermal vacuum tests to ensure the rover is ready for mission.

Meanwhile, software engineers at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California, where the mission is managed, continue to develop and test the rover’s brains before they are integrated into the rover’s hardware. And the VIPER science team continues to simulate rapid scientific operations as they prepare for the Moon landing target on November 10, 2024. The scientists chose the date to ensure that the solar-powered rover VIPER gets as much sunlight as possible. Make frequent stops to study and explore part of the large flat-topped moon mountain Mons Mouton. Using a target landing date, the rover’s science team can continue to plan the best path for the rover to maximize science results while staying one step ahead of the cold, dark shadows.

The successful arrival of the first scientific instruments for flight is just the beginning. More are expected to arrive soon, and many other parts are in the pipeline for integration. NASA will deliver VIPER to Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic in mid-2024 before its launch in late 2024. Astrobotic plans to deliver VIPER to the Moon’s south pole with the Griffin lander as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.

Once on the Moon, VIPER will study the environment to better understand the source and distribution of lunar water and other potential resources. Such findings can be used to help determine where and how lunar resources can be harvested to support humans on the Moon for the Artemis program and future manned space exploration in deep space.