ANALYSIS | NASA engineers hope to send a robot snake to explore Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus | 24CA News
Scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory have developed a snake-like robotic which will in the future slither into crevices on Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus.
The robotic explorers which have landed on the surfaces of the moon and Mars have been in a position to roam over rocky terrain utilizing metallic wheels able to traversing dusty or sandy surfaces.
But wheels have their limitations, as we found with the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity. Each was outfitted with six wheels, however Opportunity acquired caught in a sand dune for a month in 2005, whereas Spirit acquired caught in sand in 2009 and by no means acquired out.
Another limitation of wheeled rovers is their incapability to take care of very tough terrain. If a hill is simply too steep, the wheels might slip, and the entire automobile dangers tipping over, so rovers have been despatched to pretty protected areas.
The Mars rover operators have additionally averted icy terrain as a result of, as anybody who drives in winter situations is aware of, getting caught in snow and ice is way too simple.
One new method to rover mobility is to desert wheels altogether and emulate snakes, that are excellent at manoeuvring via uncommon terrain. The reptile conforms its versatile physique to no matter impediment it encounters and slithers round or over it.
NASA’s EELS undertaking (brief for Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor) is a four-metre-long mechanical snake with 10 similar segments, every encased in a shell that kinds a helical screw. The rotating screws grip the bottom, transfer it ahead and can even be capable to self-screw via ice. Meanwhile, the joints between segments allow it to slither back and forth and even carry its head like a snake sniffing the air — in truth its sensor head accommodates cameras and object-detecting lidar.
Engineers started constructing the primary EELS prototype in 2019, and so they’ll have loads of time to develop their robotic. NASA’s future exploration of Enceladus is barely on the idea stage, and even that plan would not think about a mission leaving earlier than 2038.
They hope this flexibility, together with its skin-like force-sensing actuators to assist it really feel its means round, will make it extra adaptable to excessive terrain.
A primary goal for EELS is Saturn’s moon Enceladus, an ice world with geysers spewing water out of cracks close to its south pole, suggesting a subsurface ocean and doable haven for alien life.
Exploring Enceladus’ floor could be much like traversing a glacier on Earth, the place the ice kinds deep crevices that might simply swallow a wheeled automobile.
To that finish, the slithery snake has been examined within the snow of a ski resort and on an ice rink. Its sensor head, containing scientific devices, was lowered right into a gap within the Athabasca Glacier in British Columbia. The gadget was additionally examined in sand so it may work on the floor of the moon or Mars.
Enceladus is a few billion and a half kilometres from Earth, which implies a radio sign takes greater than an hour to get there, so the snake robotic will be capable to navigate fully by itself. That consists of getting itself out of bother ought to it fall right into a crack or gap.
It will carry an array of sensors which have but to be chosen, however they’ll doubtless study the chemistry of the ice and probably search for any indicators of life.
Another group at Georgia Tech is taking a lesson from centipedes to create multi-legged robots that may additionally clamber over tough terrain.
These are the varieties of robots that might be crawling round of the surfaces of planets and moons sooner or later.
Humans are pleased with inventing the wheel, however nature has supplied many different methods to provide mobility to animals in all kinds of environments the place wheels can not go. As we attain out to different worlds with our mechanical pets, taking cues from nature appears a great way to go.
WATCH | An creative illustration of EELS exploring Enceladus.
