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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) intends to seek out alien life using miniature underwater robots. These robots, called Sensing With Independent Micro-swimmers (SWIM), will be helping researchers assess the possibility of life deep below the ice on Europa, Jupiter’s moon.
The SWIM robots are about the size of a cellphone and have been designed to navigate harsh underwater environments autonomously. They are equipped with sensors for collecting temperature, pressure, and chemical composition data. The project is led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in collaboration with engineers from the Georgia Institute of Technology, with Ethan Schaler as the principal investigator.
“People might ask, why is NASA developing an underwater robot for space exploration? It’s because there are places we want to go in the solar system to look for life, and we think life needs water,” Schaler said. “So we need robots that can explore those environments — autonomously, hundreds of millions of miles from home.”
Testing took place in September 2024 at Caltech in Pasadena, California. Several prototypes were released in a 25-yard (23-meter) swimming pool for engineers to assess. Results showed their ability to perform a back-and-forth “lawnmower” exploration pattern, which ensures a systematic search. During these tests, the robots demonstrated impressive capability to keep a stable course and even spell out “J-P-L” in water.
“It’s awesome to build a robot from scratch and see it successfully operate in a relevant environment,” Schaler said. “Underwater robots, in general, are very hard, and this is just the first in a series of designs we’d have to work through to prepare for a trip to an ocean world. But it’s proof that we can build these robots with the necessary capabilities and begin to understand what challenges they would face on a subsurface mission.”
The presence of liquid water and the potential for an energy source make Europa one of the most promising places in our solar system to search for alien life. Once they arrive, the robots will land along with an ice-melting cryobot. This cryobot will help create an entrance for the bots to disperse into Europa’s thick ice shell. Using a combination of temperature and chemical sensors, the robots aim to detect any conditions that might support life.
The SWIM robots are part of a larger mission involving the Europa Clipper spacecraft. This mission aims to conduct flybys of Europa starting in 2030. The SWIM robots will then follow up for a closer and direct investigation.
These innovative robots not only have the potential to revolutionize our understanding of Europa but could also find applications here on Earth. The technologies developed for SWIM, such as the wireless underwater communication system, could help in oceanographic research and even polar exploration, providing scientists with new tools to study extreme environments.
