NASA engineers have spent the past decade developing a robust, partially autonomous country designed to explore Europe, one of Jupiter’s most intriguing moons. The Space Agency has received cold feet over the project, but engineers are now targeting a new destination for the probe: Enceladus.
Europa has long been a main target looking for extraterrestrial biology because scientists suspect it has a Subsurface ocean Under its ice shell, possibly soaking with microbial life. But the robot-filled with radiation shelter, cutting software and ice cream appendices-don’t go anywhere soon.
In a recent paper in Science roboticsEngineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) outlined the project and testing of what was once the European lands Prototype, a four-legged robot explorer built to survive the brutal surface conditions of the Jovia Moon. The robot was designed to walk – unlike rolling – analyze terrain, collect specimens and drill in the ice shell of Europe – all with minimal guidance of the Earth, due to the major communication between our planet and the moon 568 million miles (914 million kilometers) away.
Designed to operate autonomously for hours at a time, the bot came equipped with stereoscopic cameras, robot arm, LED lights, and a set of special materials strong enough to withstand severe radiation and cold cold. Temperatures on the moon ranging from about -210 degrees Fahrenheit (-134 degrees Celsius) at its equator to as low as -370 degrees F (-223 degrees C) at its poles.
After years of development – including testing in JPL laboratories, advanced simulations and a final field test of ice terrain in Alaska – the European Lander presented its tests. It was ready to take on the frozen limit of the solar system. But the Space Agency has now pulled the plug in the mission.
According to the team, the challenges of arriving at Europe-all radio exhibition, huge distance and short observation windows-proved too scary for NASA’s higher. And that is before you consider the devastating budget cuts Scheduled by the Trump administration, which would see the agency’s funding fall from $ 7.3 billion to $ 3.9 billion. The Lander, once the central part of a bold astrobiological initiative, is now essentially softened.
But the engineers do not give up. They are now lobbying that the robot should get a second shot-on Enceladus, Saturn’s ice-covered moon, which too have a subsurface ocean and proved more favorable for robotic research. Enceladus is still cold, but has lower radiation and better access windows than Europe.
Whether the ice walker receives a new lease on his semi-autonomous life remains visible. But the robot was built for a moon – though relatively rigid and gossip – and it deserves its moment.
