A radioisotope powered cryobot for penetrating the Europan ice shell

The Cryobot team at JPL has been working on the design of a Cryo-Hydro Integrated Robotic Penetrator System (CHIRPS), which can be used to penetrate the Mars North Polar Cap or the thick sheet ice surrounding Jupiter’s moon, Europa. The science for either one of these missions is compelling. For both Mars and Europa the major scientific interest is to reach regions where there is a reservoir of water that may yield signs of past or extant life. Additionally, a Mars polar cap penetration would help us understand both climatic and depositional histories for perhaps as far back as 20 million years. Similarly, penetration of the Europa ice sheet would allow scientists to unravel the mysteries surrounding the thick ice crust, its chemical composition, and subsurface ocean properties. Extreme mass and power constraints make deep drilling/coring impractical. The best way to explore either one of these environments is a cryobot mole penetrator vehicle, which carries a suite of instruments suitable for sampling an...