Earthly search could lead to Martian caves

Robotic cave explorers
The project team also aims to design robots that can explore caves on Mars after they have been spotted. Natalie Cabrol, a planetary geologist with NASA Ames and the SETI Institute, will be integral to this part of the project.

Cabrol is a Mars robot veteran. Before Spirit and Opportunity were sent to Mars, she helped engineers perfect their designs by field-testing the robotic rovers in the Atacama Desert in Chile.

The researchers may have to design more than one type of robotic cave explorer. "There are many types of caves," Cabrol said in a telephone interview. "It may be that we come up with one very versatile design ... or we might end up with several designs."

If the caves have a relatively simple structure — like lava tubes, which are caves carved by flowing magma and are relatively simple and straight — a rover-type robot might work, Cabrol said. "I would doubt that a rover, equipped as they are now, would do a good job in a cave" with a more complicated geometry, she said.

Open to ideas
The researchers are also considering other robotic design possibilities, including the deployment of several miniature robots together into a cave.

"You could throw out an array of microbots in a birdshot approach over an area where you think there is a cave," Wynne told SPACE.com. The microbots could then use sonar or some other method to confirm the presence of a cave and pinpoint its location.

Whatever form the team's robotic explorer ultimately takes, it will have to be agile, have some basic sense of self-awareness, sport excellent night vision and have the ability to communicate with one other in some innovative way, since conventional radio communication might not work well in caves, Cabrol said.

"We are very much on the starting line on this," she added. "This is very exciting. This is really the time when ideas are flitting all over the place."

MORE FROM SPACE

Space Section Front

Earth's upper atmosphere cooling dramatically New crew poised to launch to space station Cosmic Log: Koreans plan space tours Mars probe's latest trouble: Titanium parts Moon poses radiation risk to future travelers NASA, Google eye tracking climate gases Mars lander just might rise from the dead Cosmic Log: Alien ‘water world’ found Organic molecules found ... on the moon?   Month in space: Powerful pictures Space Section Front   Add Space headlines to your news reader: