Experts from the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have begun testing a swarm of underwater robots designed to explore the ocean beneath the icy crust of Jupiter’s moon Europa. The intention is to discover possible signs of extraterrestrial life.
The project is known as SWIM (Sensing With Independent Micro-swimmers). It contemplates the design of a network of self-propelled exploration vehicles the size of a smartphone. The instruments will search for biotypes in the underground masses of the ocean worlds using chemical and thermal indicators. All of this is planned to happen. in 49 flybys planned for after 2030.
Ethan Schaler, SWIM principal investigator at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) research center, notes that “people might wonder why NASA is developing an underwater robot for space exploration. It’s because there are places in the solar system we want to go to look for life. Living beings need water. “These robots will be very useful to examine these environments autonomously.”
What are NASA’s new underwater robots like?
The archetype of research instruments is made of plastic and has been 3D printed. It adds “low-cost, commercially manufactured” motors and electronic components, according to the agency. It is driven by two propellers and four fins that allow it to take direction. It is wedge-shaped, measures 42 centimeters and weighs just over 2 kilograms. It integrates measurement sensors capable of recording temperature, pressure, acidity or alkalinity, conductivity and the chemical composition of the environment simultaneously. All these components are concentrated in “a chip of just a few square millimeters. “It is the first to combine all these detectors in a small package,” the agency celebrates. The semiconductor was tested on an Alaska glacier in July 2023 through a JPL-led project known as ORCAA (Ocean Worlds Reconnaissance and Characterization of Astrobiological Analogs).
NASA has tested a series of these prototypes in a 23-meter-deep competition pool. The development demonstrated its autonomous capabilities to perform controlled maneuvers, stay on a heading, correct it and follow a round-trip scanning pattern. Engineers completed more than 20 rounds of testing various prototypes successfully.
The development team explains that “for space flights, the specimens would have dimensions three times smaller and more diminutive compared to existing remotely operated or autonomous underwater scientific vehicles. They would have custom-made pieces for that purpose. “They would use a novel wireless underwater acoustic communication system to transmit data and triangulate their positions.”
NASA also conducted a test in a simulated environment that replicated the pressure and gravity of Jupiter’s moon Europa. The behavior of a swarm of 12-centimeter-long robots was examined to collect scientific data in an unknown and hostile environment. The test allowed scientists to optimize algorithms and autonomy systems for exploration and balance the capabilities of the tools with the inspection area and determine the size of the network to ensure maximum efficiency.
“It’s great to build a robot from scratch and see it work successfully in a relevant environment. Underwater automata are generally complex. This is just the first in a series of designs we would have to work on to prepare for a trip to an ocean world. This shows that we can build devices with the necessary capabilities [para cumplir el propósito] and begin to understand the challenges they would face on an underwater mission in space,” says Schaler.
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