IceMole
IceMole is an autonomous ice research probe, incorporating a new type of ice-melting tip for the exploration of polar regions, glaciers, ice sheets, and extraterrestrial regions, developed by a team from the FH Aachen, a Fachhochschule (university of applied sciences) in Aachen, Germany.
As of April 2011[update], the probe is in its first prototype and it has been designed to carry out the subsurface investigation of terrestrial glaciers and ice sheets.
[1] The robot resulted from a student project at the Fachbereich Luft- und Raumfahrttechnik (Faculty of Aerospace Engineering) at the FH Aachen, led by Prof. Dr. Bernd Dachwald.
The IceMole utilizes a 6 cm (2.4 in) long screw at its heated head that keeps firm contact while drilling with the ice being melted.
This enables the IceMole to penetrate soil and mud and also leads to a good conductive heat transfer when in contact with the ice.
The team hopes to eventually work with other researchers that would use IceMole to drop sensors deep in icy environments.
[1][2] The test results show that the IceMole concept is a viable approach to deliver scientific instruments into deep ice and to recover them afterwards.
Another advantage of the IceMole with respect to drilling is that biological contamination can be minimized and the process can be made highly autonomous, so that there is no need for an operator on the surface.
[1][2] The results were reported at the 2011 Antarctic Science Symposium in Madison, Wisconsin and the European Geosciences Union 2011 held at Vienna, Austria.
)To travel distance of ~ 40 m 5) To function for durations of 50 - 150 hours 6) To undock tether containers Blood Falls was used as the target for testing IceMole in November 2014.
This unusual flow of melt water from below the glacier gives scientists access to an environment they could otherwise only explore by drilling (which would also risk contaminating it).
One hypothesis is that its source may be the remains of an ancient fjord that occupied the Taylor valley in the tertiary period.
