'Cryobot' could tunnel beneath Europa's ice

[UM-Bot]

Scientists are developing a robot designed to explore the ocean beneath Jupiter's icy moon.

With NASA planning to send a spacecraft to Europa in the not-too-distant future, efforts have been underway to design a probe capable of venturing down in to the liquid water ocean below its surface.

Read More: http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/news/282631/cryobot-could-tunnel-beneath-europas-ice

[tipotep]

I hope they can make this happen, I have always been fascinated by Europa, Surely there is some sort of life below the ice?

[+DieChecker]

They'll probably have to freeze the tunnel behind the robot, to prevent it shooting back out the hole once it reaches pressurized water. Dragging the fiber optic cable through miles of re-frozen ice could be problematic.

Most fiber optic cable will weigh about 5 pounds per 1000 feet, so for 50 miles of ice, that would be about 1300 pounds of cable the robot would have to be carrying. Not going to happen, I think.

If it were me, I might look into a series of relays that the robot drops off behind it, as it melts through the ice. If they were directional, they might be able to transmit quite a good distance, and you wouldn't need any line dragging behind the robot. Then the robot, when it got to the water, would drop off a base station that would receive from the robot and send messages by the buried relays back to the surface. This would probably weigh a lot less, but since the relays would be working off batteries, they might only work for a couple weeks or months.

Edited June 16, 2015 by DieChecker

[Merc14]

They'll probably have to freeze the tunnel behind the robot, to prevent it shooting back out the hole once it reaches pressurized water. Dragging the fiber optic cable through miles of re-frozen ice could be problematic.

Most fiber optic cable will weigh about 5 pounds per 1000 feet, so for 50 miles of ice, that would be about 1300 pounds of cable the robot would have to be carrying. Not going to happen, I think.

If it were me, I might look into a series of relays that the robot drops off behind it, as it melts through the ice. If they were directional, they might be able to transmit quite a good distance, and you wouldn't need any line dragging behind the robot. Then the robot, when it got to the water, would drop off a base station that would receive from the robot and send messages by the buried relays back to the surface. This would probably weigh a lot less, but since the relays would be working off batteries, they might only work for a couple weeks or months.

I was thinking along the same lines. Also, the relays would be able to move around with the ice without breaking as a cable would. The illustration showed the submarine being delivered beneath the ice by some kind of pointy ended craft that must be the drilling rig, so you could mount a lot of equipment on it and then release the much smaller sub to go exploring.

[paperdyer]

AS the article shows a picture of "Cryobot" in a tunnel it melted, I'd think the initial hole would freeze behind the probe pretty quickly. If cables were used, wouldn't the cables need to be heated so they wouldn't freeze into the ice making it impossible for the probe to go further? It does seem like relay stations are the best option.