Photos: NASA previews a new water-hunting lunar rover in Oakland

OAKLAND, CA - MAY 28: Martha Magana, left, and son Matthew, of Fremont, walk past a full-scale replica of NASA's Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER, on display at the Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland, Calif., on Saturday, May 28, 2022. Part of the Artemis program, the rover's mission will be to search the lunar South Pole for ice and other potential resources making long-term human exploration of the Moon and other parts of deep space possible, according to the space agency. (Anda Chu/Bay Area News Group) — OAKLAND, CA – MAY 28: Martha Magana, left, and son Matthew, of Fremont, walk past a full-scale replica of NASA’s Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER, on display at the Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland, Calif., on Saturday, May 28, 2022. Part of the Artemis program, the rover’s mission will be to search the lunar South Pole for ice and other potential resources making long-term human exploration of the Moon and other parts of deep space possible, according to the space agency. (Anda Chu/Bay Area News Group)

Before humans return to the Moon’s surface by 2025 through NASA’s Artemis program, the space agency is sending a rover to scope out the hydration situation.

The Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER, is about as large as a golf cart. It’s expected to spend 100 Earth days searching the moon’s south polar region for water ice deposits below the surface in 2023.

You can see VIPER for yourself this Memorial Day weekend at Chabot Space & Science Center, which is introducing the first full-scale replica of the robot to the public as part of the NASA Artemis Preview Weekend hosted by NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. The event is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, May 28 and Sunday, May 29.

VIPER’s mission will follow up work done by the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite in 2009 that detected evidence of water ice at the Moon’s poles. VIPER is making the trip to better learn how much water ice is up there and in what form. Scientists at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View are leading the VIPER mission and already created high-resolution maps of the lunar surface to plan routes for the rover.

The Artemis missions will return astronauts to the Moon and land the first woman and first person of color on the lunar surface.

OAKLAND, CA – MAY 28: Visitors look at a full-scale replica of NASA’s Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER, on display at the Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland, Calif., on Saturday, May 28, 2022. Part of the Artemis program, the rover’s mission will be to search the lunar South Pole for ice and other potential resources making long-term human exploration of the Moon and other parts of deep space possible, according to the space agency. (Anda Chu/Bay Area News Group)

OAKLAND, CA – MAY 28: The mast, which houses the antenna, cameras and lights of NASA’s Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER, is on display at the Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland, Calif., on Saturday, May 28, 2022. Part of the Artemis program, the rover’s mission will be to search the lunar South Pole for ice and other potential resources making long-term human exploration of the Moon and other parts of deep space possible, according to the space agency. (Anda Chu/Bay Area News Group)

OAKLAND, CA – MAY 28: Martha Magana, right, and son Matthew, of Fremont, look at a full-scale replica of NASA’s Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER, on display at the Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland, Calif., on Saturday, May 28, 2022. Part of the Artemis program, the rover’s mission will be to search the lunar South Pole for ice and other potential resources making long-term human exploration of the Moon and other parts of deep space possible, according to the space agency. (Anda Chu/Bay Area News Group)

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