The Stone Aerospace team with VALKYRIE (the black tube hanging on the apparatus in the middle of the picture) on the Matanuska glacier during testing in 2014. Image: Stone Aerospace
A robotic “cryobot,” designed to tunnel down through thick ice caps and penetrate subterranean seas, is undergoing tests on the Matanuska glacier in Alaska. It paves the way towards one day exploring the underground oceans of Jupiter’s moon, Europa, or other icy moons of the Outer Solar System.
Named VALKYRIE (Very deep Autonomous Laser-powered Kilowatt-class Yo-yoing Robotic Ice Explorer) and funded by NASA’s Astrobiology Science and Technology for Exploring Planets (ASTEP) program, this cryobot uses lasers and fiber optics to cleanly melt its way through the ice.
Source: [astrobio.net]
