2007-06-20 | SCIENCE
DEPTHX project completed

Roundup: DEPTHX project completed

The Deep Phreatic Thermal Explorer (DEPTHX) project, funded by NASA's Astrobiology Science and Technology for Exploring Planets (ASTEP) program*, concluded at the end of May, upon completing a series of field tests in Mexico. DEPTHX Principal Investigator Bill Stone reported on the project June 14 at a NASA Headquarters briefing.

The DEPTHX robot an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) demonstrated scientific and technological capabilities that could be useful in exploring the ice-covered oceans thought to exist on Jupiters moon Europa.

DEPTHX performed so well that it is being "recycled" for another ASTEP project, called ENDURANCE (Environmentally Non-Disturbing Under-ice Robotic Antarctic Explorer). For the ENDURANCE project, DEPTHX will be disassembled, sterilized, and fitted with a new instrument package. ENDURANCE is slated for a 2008 expedition to Antarctica, where it will dive beneath the ice cover of Lake Bonney in the dry valleys region of the continent.

For more information on DEPTHX, including facts, field logs, photos, and video files, see:

n     Stone Aerospace

n     Field Robotics Center, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University (also see this link)

n     Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas-Austin

n     All Things Microbial Group, Colorado School of Mines

n     How Stuff Works

For press releases about DEPTHX, see:

n     NASA Headquarters release, May 31, 2007

n     Carnegie Mellon University, May 31, 2007

n     University of Texas, March 8, 2007

n     Southwest Research Institute, March 1, 2007

For media reports on DEPTHX, see:

n     "DEPTHX brings data from the deep, on its own," David Templeton, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 13, 2007

n     "Mexican sinkhole may lead NASA to Jupiter," "Mexican sinkhole may lead NASA to Jupiter," Ceci Connolly, The Washington Post, May 14, 2007 (subscription required for online access)

n     " DEPTHX scours sinkholes," Emmet Cole, March 9, 2007, Wired magazine http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/03/72907  (also see "DEPTHX goes where no 'bot has gone before," Wired, April 16)

n     "Deep mission: aquatic robot diver could aid Europa exploration," Tariq Malik, space.com, March 7, 2007

n     "Robot subs in space," James Vlahos, Popular Science magazine, February 2007 " DEPTHX-Wish," Jennifer Bails, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, May 8, 2006 (this story includes an excellent graphic  see PDF file "Search for life")

* ASTEP is a science-driven exploration program designed to yield new science and operational/technological capabilities that could be used by the next generation of planetary exploration missions.  A unique and central feature of the ASTEP program is the use of terrestrial field campaigns to further science and technology. 

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