A NASA robot designed to melt its way through thousands of metres of ice to collect data and images from subsurface oceans has undergone its first successful test in the Arctic.
The robot - named Cryobot - could eventually be used to explore the polar ice caps of Mars and delve down beneath the icy crust of Jupiter's moon, Europa. In the shorter term, it could be sent on missions under unexplored expanses of ice on Earth.
During its first test, Cryobot descended 23 metres into a glacier on Spitsbergen Island, one of the Svalbard Islands in the Arctic circle.
The most common method of deep ice exploration involves rotary or hot water drilling, and the retrieval of a core sample to the surface. Cryobot uses hot water and gravity to sink down into ice, allowing the ice to reform above.
The probe, which measures one metre by 12 centimetres, is connected to equipment on the surface that supplies electrical power and collects data. In its completed form, it will carry a camera and chemical sensing equipment.
In comparison with conventional ice-exploration tools, Cryobot should cause very little disturbance to its surrounding environment. The machine releases no pollutants and is designed to allow ice to seal above it, reducing the chance that surface pollution could impact the environment below.
Cryobot was designed and built by a team of engineers at NASA and tested with the help of scientists from the Norwegian Polar Institute in Tromsø.
The team initially conceived Cryobot as a means of exploring the oceans that are thought to exist beneath the surface of Europa, which some scientists think could harbour life.
But the robot could also be used to explore sub-surface environments on Earth that are inaccessible using existing equipment. This would include Antarctica's Lake Vostok, the fourth largest lake on Earth.
"In developing ideas for exploring Europa, we realised the same technology could be applied to icy environments elsewhere - ice on Earth and the polar ice caps on Mars," says Lloyd French, Cryobot task manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
Richard Greenberg of the University of Arizona thinks Cryobot may in fact be better suited to missions to Mars and Earth expeditions. Recent studies of Europa suggest that cracks in the ice and seismic activity could remove the need for sub-surface exploration. Greenberg think traces of life could well be found on the surface.
"If the biosphere extends to the surface of Europa, there's plenty of exploration to be done in the top few metres," he says.
Cryobot is one of 10 projects that will compete for a place aboard a NASA Mars Scout mission to the red planet in 2007.
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