NASA took a walk to the moon. The rover of this startup took it.

NASA's second thoughts about Viper opened an opportunity for someone more to reserve that trip to the moon. The fact that its load was canceled did not mean that Astrobotic's trip was off, remains scheduled by the end of this year. And on Wednesday, a small startup called Venturi Astrolab Inc. announced that he had claimed that opportunity to accelerate his own lunar plans.

“We are excited to obtain real wheels on Earth this year and see how all our technology works,” said Jaret Matthews, executive director of Astrolab, in an interview. (Despite similar names, the two companies are not related).

Many people inside and outside NASA were perplexed by the cancellation of Viper, because the rover, while it was above the budget and after the schedules, had been completed. I needed only one more test of tests before being ready for the launch. NASA officials said, on the other hand, the finished rover would be disassembled.

In addition, they said NASA would still pay $ 323 million to Astrobotic. Therefore, canceling the mission would save NASA a relatively insignificant amount, $ 84 million, after spending around $ 800 million.

By its rate, Astrobotic would carry out the mission as planned, but the Lander spacecraft, known as Griffin, would entail a non -functional fictional weight instead of Viper.

NASA officials said that for Astrobotic to perform the landing successful, it was in itself a valuable exercise, and that the company was free to sell the useful load space in Griffin to another client if it could, replacing the fictional weight.

“We had more than 60 organizations around the world playing at our door,” said John Thornton, Executive Director of Astrobotic.

Astrolab, he said, was the best game. “They could move fast,” Thornton said. “They had a payload that already coincided with the interfaces for landing.”

The rover that Astrolab will fly in this mission is also approximately the same size as Viper. Mr. Matthews refused to say how much Astrolab was paying astrobotic.

Astrolab is developing a rover of the size of a Wrangler Jeep who could autonomously lead to people or people through the moon surface. The company calls it flexible, abbreviation of Flexible logistics and exploration rover.

Flex is too big and heavy to fit Astrobotic's landing. Astrolab has already reserved space for Flex in a future spacecraft, the gigantic spacecraft currently under development by Spacex, the rocket company founded by Elon Musk.

But before sending Flex to the Moon, Astrolab wants to send a smaller 1,000 -pounds called Flip, abbreviation for Flex Lunar Innovation Platform, to test technologies such as batteries, engines, energy systems and communications. A particular objective is to study how to minimize the problems caused by lunar dust particles, which are angular and sharp.

The smallest Flip is the one that the Astrobotic Griffin will take to the moon.

Mr. Matthews said Flip would also carry a couple of commercial users that would be announced later.

Despite Astrobotic's failure last year, Mr. Matthews said he had confidence in the astrobotic. “From our perspective, it is actually a way to reduce the risk of our subsequent missions,” he said. “If we did not have full confidence in Astrobotic, we would not be doing this.”

Thornton said last year had been introspection for the company. “It's like the old saying: 'What does not kill you makes you stronger,” he said. “I think in this case he really did.”

Despite NASA's efforts to kill Viper, the Rover is not dead or dismantled yet. NASA requested and received proposals to continue the mission without additional investments from NASA.

The agency expect to make a decision this summer. But with the new Trump administration that indicates more interest in Mars than on the moon, everything could change soon.

Thornton said Astrobotic didn't care about that possibility yet. “There is certainly a lot of conversation in DC,” he said. “But at this time we are focused on what NASA has hired us to do, and is to deliver Griffin to the surface of the moon.”

Mr. Matthews said that if NASA really turned to Mars, Astrolab could also turn.

“We have always considered ourselves a multiple planet business,” he said, “and we would be excited to go to Mars too.”