Cryobot Explorers

Wired:

Future extraterrestrial rovers may be powered remotely by high-energy laser beams shot through miles of thin fiber-optic cables. This new technology could allow robotic probes to penetrate thick layers of ice to explore Antarctic lakes or the subterranean oceans on icy moons like Europa or Enceladus, and even power a new kind of rocket into space. “Our modest goal over the next three years is to use a 5,000-watt laser to send a cryobot through up to 250 meters of ice,” inventor and explorer Bill Stone, who presented the new concept today at NASA’s Astrobiology Science Conference in Atlanta, told Wired. “All the data show there are no show-stoppers for doing that. But from my standpoint, this is child’s play compared to what we could do.”
The problem for scientists hoping to study the ocean of liquid water believed to lie beneath Europa’s icy crust has always been the amount of energy required to melt through miles of ice. Solar power won’t work below the surface, and batteries won’t last long enough. And while a small nuclear reactor might have enough power, the footprint would be too large for a device NASA might realistically expect to drill miles down. A nuclear device couldn’t be tested in Antarctica either, because of international treaty restrictions. The new robot, a 6-foot by 10-inch cylinder called VALKYRIE, would leave its power plant on the surface, along with a high-energy laser. The laser beam would travel down miles of fiber-optic cable that unspools as the robot penetrates the ice, explores the ocean collecting samples and then melts its way back up to the surface, sealing the hole behind it.
The team has built and tested the laser-fiber-optic power system at Stone’s lab in Texas and plans to test it with a working cryobot at Alaska’s Matanuska Glacier in June 2013.