Washington, Feb 9: Researchers are preparing to test a NASA-funded robotic probe under ice in Lake Mendota on the campus of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, to demonstrate whether the probe's systems can operate in a similar environment on Jupiter's moon Europa.
Known as the “Environmentally Non-Disturbing Under-ice Robotic Antarctic Explorer”, the probe is a 2.3 million dollars project funded by NASA's Astrobiology Science and Technology for Exploring Planets Program.
The probe is an autonomous underwater vehicle designed to swim untethered under ice, creating three-dimensional maps of underwater environments.