Exploring Antarctica’s Lake Bonney – ENDURANCE robot dives into ice-covered lake
The robot that scientists deployed last year into ice-covered Lake Bonney External U.S. government site in Antarctica’s McMurdo Dry Valleys External U.S. government site isn’t small. The autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), named ENDURANCE (Environmentally Non-Disturbing Under-ice Robotic ANtartic Explorer) , requires its own “garage” and a hoist to maneuver in and out of the water. It’s slightly smaller than a Volkswagen Beetle without wheels.
The robot that scientists deployed last year into ice-covered Lake Bonney External U.S. government site in Antarctica’s McMurdo Dry Valleys External U.S. government site isn’t small. The autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), named ENDURANCE (Environmentally Non-Disturbing Under-ice Robotic ANtartic Explorer) , requires its own “garage” and a hoist to maneuver in and out of the water. It’s slightly smaller than a Volkswagen Beetle without wheels.
It came as something of a surprise, then, that microbubbles of gas were able to push ENDURANCE around a bit while it explored the cold depths of the briny lake.
“We knew these lakes were supersaturated with gases, and yet a bunch of very smart people did not predict that these gases meant microbubbles would form on every surface of the vehicle and cause buoyancy problems,” mused Peter Doran , principal investigator of the ENDURANCE project. “They also formed on the surface of [the sonar] and caused interference there, too.”
ENDURANCE made its first underwater foray into Lake Bonney last field season. Its job is to create three-dimensional maps of the underwater environment, which includes the face of Taylor Glacier. It also carries a suite of instruments that allow it to measure water characteristics like salinity and acidity, and probe for evidence of microbial life.
Doran and his collaborators on the NASA-funded External U.S. government site project, which involves logistical assistance from the National Science Foundation (NSF) External U.S. government site, also view the ENDURANCE prototype as a possible tool for future exploration of Saturn’s moon Europa, which scientists believe has reservoirs of liquid water — and possibly life.
Doran said the team was able to overcome the buoyancy problems, but the experience proved the utility of such field tests in the challenging Antarctic environment, which researchers often use as an analogue for outer space scenarios.
“To me this was a real lesson for doing autonomous science on say Europa,” explained Doran, a professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago . “It was only because we had human ingenuity in the field that we could overcome this. Had the robot been on a mission to … Europa, and we had not prepared it for this problem, it would not have been able to overcome it.
“And that’s in an environment [Lake Bonney] we already know a lot about,” he added. “Imagine now going into a completely unknown environment on another planetary body. You really need precursor preliminary data, and even without that, there are risks to going there for sure.”
Lake Bonney, a saline lake about 3 kilometers long and 1
