Explorers of the icy moon may one day be able to hunt down life using an outdated method: the power of steam.
A conceptual robot being investigated at NASA. Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) would launch soccer ball-sized machines to jump to the surface and fly through the air, using the steam produced by melting the ice.
The initial stage idea is called the Autonomous Steam-powered Recovery Robot for Ocean Worlds (SPARROW). On a frozen moon like Jupiter Europe or Saturn EnceladusSPARROW could potentially travel several miles in the moon’s low-gravity environment, without a thick atmosphere slowing it down.
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“The terrain in Europe is very complex,” said Gareth Meirion-Griffith, a JPL robotist and principal investigator of the concept. said in a JPL statement. Examples of the challenges that a robot like SPARROW may face include cracks, porous and treacherous ice, or penitents, long blades of ice that generally form at high latitudes on Earth. SPARROW, however, could overcome these obstacles, Meirion-Griffith added. “You have complete freedom to travel through inhospitable terrain.”
SPARROW received funds from Phase I of NASA Advanced Innovative Concepts Program, which specializes in technology that would push the boundaries of traditional design, in 2018, allowing the design team to explore ideas and advance the mission’s level of technology readiness for space flight. The SPARROW team could also propose a follow-up Phase II study for further development.
Until now, the team has been evaluating different ideas for water-based propeller systems that produce steam efficiently. Using computer simulations, the SPARROW researchers also examined how the robot will wobble and move as it explores the ice. His concern is to make sure that the robot uses the most efficient launch angles and jump speeds move around.
“From this, and related propulsion calculations, we were able to determine that a single long jump would be more efficient than several smaller jumps,” said Meirion-Griffith.
While a possible SPARROW mission is years or perhaps decades from launch (if it ever happens), researchers already have some ideas on how the exploration would proceed. A lander could shoot down swarms of SPARROW to conduct independent investigations of the moon’s surface. The lander delve into the ice and melt the ice to feed the individual SPARROWs.
Each little jumping robot then heats the water inside its motors to make the steam it needs jump off the surface. SPARROWs would be located at a safe distance from the lander, allowing them to return to the base of operations whenever they need refueling, and also leave scientific samples for analysis.
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