NASA robot on icy mission

A SPACE robot designed to search for extraterrestrial life under the ice of a faraway moon will be tested closer to home this summer.

US space agency NASA will join the Australian Antarctic Program at Casey Station on a four-week trip to test the robotic systems under the sea ice.

NASA is preparing to fly to Jupiter within the next decade to better understand the planet and investigate one of its icy moons, Europa.

Kevin Hand, a scientist at NASA’s jet propulsion laboratory, said the next step would involve sending a robot to land on Europa to look for signs of life.

“This is a world where a liquid water ocean exists today. If we’ve learned anything about life on Earth it’s that where you find liquid water, you find life. And so a world like Europa that has an ocean two to three times the volume of all the liquid water found in Earth’s oceans, it presents an incredibly compelling place to go and search for possible life. Potentially answering that age old question, are we alone?” Dr Hand said.

NASA engineer Andy Klesh said the robot, designed for a future Europa mission, was a buoyant rover with two independent wheels to manoeuvre along the underside of the ice.

The rover has already been tested in the Arctic and Alaska, but this will be its first Antarctic trial.

NASA plans to launch the Europa Clipper mission in 2025 and the spacecraft is expected to take several years to reach its destination.