NASA’s Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, known as the VIPER rover, is a precursor science mission for the Artemis program. It is scheduled to be delivered to the surface of the Moon in December 2022. It’s also important to the space economy.

Today is December 21st, the Winter Solstice, and also the Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. For the Space Economy podcast, it is the beginning of our annual three part Winter Series where we feature content from other creators.

This year we’re featuring three episodes all related to NASA’s return to the Moon with the Artemis program, and all are intertwined in the space economy of today and tomorrow.

The first episode is on NASA’s VIPER rover, a precursor science mission that does double duty in providing new data that will help scientists better understand the Earth-Moon dynamic, while at the same time providing key data to those interested in using lunar resources as part of a future lunar economy. The content originated from the Future in Space Operations weekly teleconference. The guest speaker is Dan Andrews, Director of Engineering at NASA’s Ames Research Center. The presentation that goes with this podcast is available below.