麻豆淫院

A team of engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has outlined the decade-long development and testing of what was originally known as the Europa Lander prototype鈥攁 partially autonomous robot designed to find out if Jupiter's moon Europa harbors life beneath its icy surface.

In their paper in the journal Science Robotics, the group describes the criteria they used in designing their robot, which would walk around on the surface of the moon, rather than roll, and drill down through its icy crust. They also share how it performed during testing in Alaska.

For many years, scientists at NASA have been investigating the possibility of sending a lander of some type to either Enceladus or Europa鈥攂oth have icy crusts that cover a liquid-water ocean. The existence of water suggests the possibility of life.

But this would present some very steep challenges. They are much farther away than other places landers have been sent, which means it would take much longer to get there, as would communication signals. Also, they both are more highly exposed to radiation than Mars, though Europa is much more so than Enceladus鈥攁nd both are extremely cold.

The window of visibility is also relatively short, especially with Europa. Still, NASA has proceeded with plans to build a robot that could do the job, which started back in 2013.

The design by the team called for a four-legged robot that could stabilize itself on an icy surface. It would also have a stereoscopic camera with an LED light and an arm for use in sampling and drilling. And because of the communication lags, the robot would have a computer onboard capable of allowing the robot to walk and or work autonomously for hours at a time.

To create such a robot, the team added special features to virtually all its parts鈥攎aterials to protect against radiation, sensors and response code to keep the robot stable while walking regardless of what it encountered, and a computer-vision system to assess terrain, samples collected and environmental conditions. Another computer would determine what to do and how while operating without guidance.

The robot the team built had all the features they thought necessary for a trip to Europa鈥攖hey tested it first via simulations, then in their lab, and finally, on the ice in Alaska, and were pleased with the results. But then its mission was scrubbed. Officials responsible for making such decisions deemed a trip to Europa too likely to fail. Undaunted, the team is now pushing for it to be used instead on Enceladus.

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