''Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor'', (also called ''EELS'') is a snakebot vehicle originally designed to explore the surface and the oceans of

Enceladus Enceladus is the sixth-largest moon of Saturn and the 18th-largest in the Solar System. It is about in diameter, about a tenth of that of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. It is covered by clean, freshly deposited snow hundreds of meters thick, ...

, a moon of Saturn. The

JPL The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) in La Cañada Flintridge, California, Crescenta Valley, United States. Founded in 1936 by California Institute of Technology (Caltech) researche ...

has also referred to the possibility of using EELS to explore locations such as lunar lava tubes, Mars's polar caps, and Earth's ice sheets. It uses multiple segments containing actuation, propulsion, power and, communication electronics. The segments use corkscrews to move across the ground. These corkscrews can act as propellers while underwater. , the current version (1.0) weighs approximately , and is or 10 segments long. ''EELS'' has no scientific instruments, uses stereo cameras and

Lidar Lidar (, also LIDAR, an acronym of "light detection and ranging" or "laser imaging, detection, and ranging") is a method for determining ranging, ranges by targeting an object or a surface with a laser and measuring the time for the reflected li ...

, and it uses a tether for power and communications.

References

Robotic sensing Lidar Planetary rovers Jet Propulsion Laboratory {{spacecraft-stub