I guess I don't see the point of doing this because I was under the understanding that the reason why NASA wanted to send PROMISE because it was already ready to go and they could get it on the moon and scoping things out for the moon base before the Artemis astronauts start arriving? If the Artemis timeline holds, and PROMISE does not make it until the 2030s, that means that there would probably be several crewed Artemis landings on the moon before this rover gets there.
It's amazing how press releases can stretch the truth, eh?
I was under the understanding that the reason why NASA wanted to send PROMISE because it was already ready to go
Nothing that's built for a completely different purpose is "ready to go." Everything NASA launches for a given mission is tested and retested to make sure it can perform the functions required by the mission. The testing is very often what takes the most time and money.