SPINDLE (Sub-glacial Polar Ice Navigation, Descent, and Lake Exploration) is a 2-stage autonomous vehicle system consisting of a robotic ice-penetrating carrier vehicle ( cryobot) and an autonomous submersible HAUV (hovering autonomous underwater vehicle). The cryobot is designed to descend through an ice body into a sub-surface ocean and deploy the HAUV submersible to conduct long range reconnaissance, life search, and sample collection. The HAUV submersible will return to, and auto-dock with, the cryobot at the conclusion of the mission for subsequent data uplink and sample return to the surface. The SPINDLE designed is targeted at sub-glacial lakes such as

Lake Vostok Lake Vostok (russian: озеро Восток, ''ozero Vostok'') is the largest of Antarctica's almost 400 known subglacial lakes. Lake Vostok is located at the southern Pole of Cold, beneath Russia's Vostok Station under the surface of the cen ...

and South Pole Lake in

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest cont ...

. SPINDLE would develop the technologies for a Flagship-class mission to either the shallow lakes of Jupiter's moon

Europa Europa may refer to: Places * Europe * Europa (Roman province), a province within the Diocese of Thrace * Europa (Seville Metro), Seville, Spain; a station on the Seville Metro * Europa City, Paris, France; a planned development * Europa Cliff ...

, the sub-surface ocean of Ganymede, or the geyser sources on both Europa and

Enceladus Enceladus is the sixth-largest moon of Saturn (19th largest in the Solar System). It is about in diameter, about a tenth of that of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Enceladus is mostly covered by fresh, clean ice, making it one of the most refle ...

.Progress towards an optically powered cryobot
(PDF). W.C. STONE, B. HOGAN, V. SIEGEL, S. LELIEVRE, C. FLESHER. ''Annals of Glaciology''. Issue 55, No. 65. 2014. This project created an autonomous cryobot capable of melting through vast amounts of ice. The power source on the surface uses

optic fiber An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass (silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used most often as a means ...

to conduct a high-energy laser beam to produce hot water jets that melt the ice ahead. Some beam energy is converted to electricity via

photovoltaic cell A solar cell, or photovoltaic cell, is an electronic device that converts the energy of light directly into electricity by the photovoltaic effect, which is a physical and chemical phenomenon.

s to power on-board electronics and jet pumps. Phase 2 of project VALKYRIE consisted of testing a scaled-down version of the cryobot in

Matanuska Glacier Matanuska Glacier is a valley glacier in the US state of Alaska. At long by wide, it is the largest glacier accessible by car in the United States. Its terminus feeds the Matanuska River. It lies near the Glenn Highway about north-east of Ancho ...

, Alaska in 2015. Stone Aerospace is now looking at designs integrating a scaled-down version of the HAUV submersible called ARTEMIS ( long, ) with VALKYRIE-type technology to produce SPINDLE. This goal is a full-scale cryobot which can melt its way to an Antarctic subglacial lake —

— to collect samples, and then resurface. SPINDLE does not use hot water jets as its predecessor VALKYRIE, but will beam its laser straight into the ice ahead. The vehicle features a radar integrated to an intelligent algorithm for autonomous scientific sampling and navigation through ice and water. This phase of the project would be viewed as a precursor to possible future missions to an icy world such as

, or Ganymede to explore the liquid water oceans thought to be present below their ice, assess their potential habitability and seek biosignatures. If the system is flown to an icy moon, it would likely deposit radio receiver buoys into the ice from its rear as it makes its descent. SPINDLE is designed for a NASA $2.8m Stone Aerospace, Inc. Grant For Research
Contract # NNX15AT32G. Effective 9/14/15 - 11/16/17. penetration through a terrestrial ice sheet and the HAUV has been designed for exploration up to radius from the cryobot. The cryobot is bi-directional and vertically controllable both in an ice sheet as well as following breakthrough into a subglacial water cavity or ocean. The vehicle is designed for subsequent return to the surface at a much later date or subsequent season. The required power plant must be very powerful, so the engineers are working on preliminary designs of a compact fission power plant that would be used for actual

ocean planet An ocean world, ocean planet, panthalassic planet, maritime world, water world or aquaplanet, is a type of planet that contains a substantial amount of water in form of oceans, either beneath the surface, as subsurface oceans, or on the surf ...

missions.

References

{{astrobiology Autonomous underwater vehicles NASA vehicles Astrobiology

See also

References