Scientists believe that there may be oceans hidden beneath the icy surfaces of Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's moon Enceladus. Exploring these bodies of water could lead to new scientific discoveries, but it is a complex engineering challenge that will be addressed by the TRIPLE project. The abbreviation TRIPLE stands for "Technologies for Rapid Ice Penetration and Exploration of Subglacial Lakes."
The TRIPLE-nanoAUV 2 project, coordinated by MARUM, aims to solve technological challenges related to creating underwater AUVs for research on the moons of other planets. This is one of several projects, including TRIPLE-GNC and TRIPLE-LifeDetect. The developments will be tested during field trials scheduled for 2026 under the Antarctic ice shelf near the Neumayer III station.
MARUM, together with partners from the aerospace and underwater acoustics fields, will develop the nano-AUVs. An LRS (Launch and Recovery System) will also be developed to allow the nano-AUVs to dock with the underwater part of the station to transmit collected data and recharge their batteries. As a special probe will provide access to ice up to 4,000 meters thick, the underwater vehicle will be unusually small, measuring approximately half a meter in length and 10 cm in diameter.
During testing, the system will have to penetrate 100 meters of Antarctic ice, for which the TRIPLE-IceCraft system has already been developed. The navigation and control system TRIPLE-GNC and the scientific payload TRIPLE-LifeDetect are yet to be developed.
MARUM and the University of Bremen are coordinating the current project with partners from DSI Aerospace Technologie GmbH in Bremen and EvoLogics GmbH in Berlin. The total funding volume for the project is 2.68 million euros until September 2026.
No comments:
Post a Comment