Armed with a spotlight, the tiny robot submarine, Stillwagen said, would look for hydrothermal vents. Just as on Earth, these deep and in-the-dark vents may serve as habitats for native biology on Europa. "That would be the best chance to find forms of life...where it’s the warmest," he said.
The hydrobot would broadcast images up to the surface-sitting lander, which would then relay them to Earth directly or via the orbiter circling Europa.
Who knows what may lurk subsurface on Europa?
But going the distance and coming up short on clearly finding -- or not finding -- that the moon seethes with life would constitute a setback.
"If we’re going to be there for two years, we have to conclusively prove prebiotic, or biotic, or whatever forms of life are on Europa. If you’re going to go through all this trouble, you’ve got to make sure that Europa has, or will have, life of some form," Stillwagen said.
Technological hurdles ahead
The Europa exobiology mission demands the utmost in hardware miniaturization and electronics that won’t fry in strong radiation fields.
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| The E^3 lander touches down on Europa, where it becomes a relay station for the cryobot it deploys into the ice below.
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| The E^3 Cryobot would drop through the ice of Europa's surface, melting its way around obstacles, and dropping radio relays behind it.
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| After reaching Europa's ocean, the Cryobot would deploy the submarine rover, and relay its information back up to the lander, and eventually to Earth.
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| Roaming the depths of Europa's ocean, the rover could make discoveries that would shake our understanding of life in the universe.
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|  | TODAY'S DISCUSSION | | |
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For the team trying to make such a spacecraft a reality, Stillwagen emphasized, many technological hurdles lie ahead. In terms of help bringing the mission to fruition, the study effort receives support from Langley’s Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts (RASC) program.
The work on the E3 idea might apply to other space targets too.
"Some of the technologies that we’re picking could benefit a trip to the poles of Mars. You wouldn’t drop off a submersible, but you could use the same cryobot scheme to drill through the
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