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class Yo-yoing Robotic Ice
Explorer), an autonomous ice-
penetrating robot (cryobot) that
will play an important role in the
lander mission to Europa. Europa’s
surface is ice, and most planetary
scientists believe the moon is home
to a vast subsurface ocean. To melt
through miles of ice and access the
ocean, VALKYRIE will use a newly
designed high-energy optical power
transport system, with which
photons from a surface-based laser
will power the cryobot via cable.
In the second phase of testing,
scheduled for 2013, Stone will
conduct field trials in Alaska and
Greenland to analyze VALKYRIE’s
independent onboard navigation
and obstacle-avoidance systems for
ice penetration.
Stone is currently developing
the hydrobot VALKYRIE will
deploy: ARTEMIS (Autonomous
Rover-airborne Radar Transects
of the Environment beneath the
McMurdo Ice Shelf). It’s scheduled,
in 2014, to become the world’s first
long-range autonomous vehicle to
explore and conduct sophisticated
mapping beneath Antarctica’s
Ross Ice Shelf. The maps created
will be used to calibrate NASA’s
equipment for the Europa Flyby
Mission, which Stone says will
occur between 2018 and 2020. The
lander, Stone says, will likely be
there by 2030.
The Europa lander will consist
of three elements: VALKYRIE,
which will bore through the ice
and deploy ARTEMIS, which
Bill Stone climbing in West Virginia
during the summer of 2012