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May 4, 2017

NASA Tests Robotic Ice Tools

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, space

A robotic claw, one of several innovative tools developed at JPL for exploring icy, ocean worlds like Europa.

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Want to go ice fishing on Jupiter’s moon Europa? There’s no promising you’ll catch anything, but a new set of robotic prototypes could help.

Since 2015, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, has been developing new technologies for use on future missions to ocean worlds. That includes a subsurface probe that could burrow through miles of ice, taking samples along the way; robotic arms that unfold to reach faraway objects; and a projectile launcher for even more distant samples.

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