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Spaceflight Insider
Nicholas D Alessandro
April 15th, 2021
The second flight of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket. Astrobotic has selected SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy to fly its Griffin lander, which will be carrying NASA’s VIPER rover, to the Moon. Credit: Michael McCabe / SpaceFlight Insider
Astrobotic, a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based company specializing in commercial lunar freight landers, announced it has selected SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy to launch its Griffin medium-class lander to the Moon in 2023, carrying NASA’s VIPER lunar rover.
VIPER, or Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, is a NASA mission to explore permanently-shadowed craters at the lunar south pole region to determine if frozen water deposits exist there and that they can support future crewed missions and colonies on the Moon.