NASA will use parts from scrapped lunar rover for other missions to moon

﻿Bill Bluethmann, a NASA robotics engineer at Johnson Space Center, talks about the Resource Prospector rover, designed to drill into the moon's crust in search of water. ﻿Bill Bluethmann, a NASA robotics engineer at Johnson Space Center, talks about the Resource Prospector rover, designed to drill into the moon's crust in search of water. Photo: Brett Coomer, Staff Photo: Brett Coomer, Staff Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close NASA will use parts from scrapped lunar rover for other missions to moon 1 / 5 Back to Gallery

NASA has officially decided to use the parts of a lunar rover axed last month on other robotic missions to the moon -- one of which could launch as soon as next year.

Resource Prospector, a $250 million rover being built to learn more about the availability of water on the moon, was abruptly canceled last month because NASA officials said it no longer suited the agency's exploration campaign.

The decision stunned scientists and researchers alike, especially given the recent push by President Donald Trump's administration to return Americans to the moon as a stepping stone for a mission to Mars.

NASA immediately launched a review into the decision, at the same time saying all 90 employees working on Resource Prospector would be reassigned to "other opportunities within the agency."

The agency has completed its review and determined that the rover's scientific instruments can, in fact, be used on other missions. Those instruments include an ice drill, a system to search for hydrogen below the lunar surface and a tool to quantify water extracted from the moon.

"We conducted a thorough science and engineering assessment of Resource Prospector and determined all four instruments are at a high technology readiness level, are appropriate for science on the moon, and will make flights on future" missions, Dennis Andrucyk, deputy associate administrator of the agency's Science Mission Directorate, said in a statement.

NASA is currently searching for commercial partners for the new robotic missions. Officials will award several contracts throughout the next decade. Contract missions are expected to begin as soon as 2019, and a company's first delivery will arrive on the surface no later than Dec. 31, 2021.

Resource Prospector was slated to fly in 2022 or 2023 and much of the work on the rover was being done at Houston's Johnson Space Center. The project had been in the works for three years.

Since taking office, Trump has made it clear that returning to the moon for the first time since 1972 is a priority for his administration. He revived the defunct National Space Council last year and, later, signed Space Policy Directive-1 urging NASA to return Americans to the moon.

Earlier this year, the president released a $19.9 billion NASA budget proposal for the coming fiscal year that tasks NASA with launching the first flight without a crew for Orion -- the spacecraft meant to take humans to Mars -- by 2022, followed by a launch of Americans around the moon in 2023.

NASA officials hope to launch the uncrewed flight in December 2019, but that will likely slip to June 2020 in part because of construction delays for the rocket that will carry Orion into space.

Centers around the country, including Johnson, already are working diligently to reach these deadlines.

Additionally, Trump's proposal would allow the agency to begin working on the foundation of a Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway, saying it would "give us a strategic presence in the lunar vicinity that will drive our activity with commercial and international partners and help us further explore the moon and its resources and translate that experience toward human missions to Mars."

Alex Stuckey covers NASA and the environment for the Houston Chronicle. You can reach her at alex.stuckey@chron.com or Twitter.com/alexdstuckey.