Between Outer Space and Antarctica: Miniature Robots to Carry out Research Below the Ice

For years, sci­ent­ists have as­sumed that there are oceans of wa­ter be­neath the ice cov­ers on the moons En­ce­ladus and Europa. Even in outer space, the pres­ence of wa­ter can sug­gest the pos­sib­il­ity of life, even when it is loc­ated be­neath an ice layer. The in­vest­ig­a­tion of such wa­ter bod­ies ly­ing kilo­met­ers be­low an ice sheet on the Earth, however, is an im­mense chal­lenge, and even more so in outer space. How can high-tech­no­logy tools pen­et­rate the thick ice crust, and how can the ex­plor­a­tion of the un­der­ly­ing ocean be car­ried out un­der the ex­treme en­vir­on­mental con­di­tions that ex­ist there? What kinds of sci­entific sensors are ne­ces­sary in the search for signs of life there? How can samples be re­trieved? How can all this be achieved without con­tam­in­at­ing an eco­sys­tem as yet un­known?

The col­lab­or­at­ive pro­ject TRIPLE-nanoAUV 2, co­ordin­ated at MARUM, primar­ily ex­ists to ad­dress the tech­no­lo­gical chal­lenges. The ac­ronym TRIPLE stands for “Tech­no­lo­gies for Rapid Ice Pen­et­ra­tion and subgla­cial Lake Ex­plor­a­tion.” Along with the TRIPLE col­lab­or­at­ive pro­jects TRIPLE-GNC and TRIPLE-Life­D­e­tect, the pro­ject is part of the DLR Ex­plorer ini­ti­at­ives. De­vel­op­ments in the TRIPLE pro­jects will be com­bined in Phase 2 and tested jointly dur­ing a field trial un­der the Ant­arc­tic ice shelf near the Neu­mayer III Sta­tion in the spring of 2026.

For this, a small Autonom­ous Un­der­wa­ter Vehicle (AUV) as well as an LRS (Launch and Re­cov­ery Sys­tem) will be con­struc­ted at MARUM in co­oper­a­tion with in­dus­trial part­ners from the aerospace and un­der­wa­ter-acous­tic fields, as well as from the other re­lated TRIPLE pro­jects. The LRS will en­able the nanoAUV to dock with an un­der­wa­ter sta­tion in or­der to trans­mit the col­lec­ted data and charge its bat­ter­ies, which will al­low it to stay un­der wa­ter longer. Be­cause the vehicle has to be trans­por­ted through the ice as pay­load within a melt­ing probe, it will be much smal­ler than is usual for un­der­wa­ter vehicles, with a dia­meter of about ten and a length of about 50 cen­ti­meters.

Read more at: MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen

Model of the miniature underwater vehicle being developed at MARUM with partners from industry. It will have a diameter of around ten and a length of about 50 centimeters. Graphic: MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen. (Photo Credit: MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen)