Before any rockets to Europa launch each aspect of their respective missions will have to be planned down to the most minor detail. In anticipation of these possible missions scientists at the European Space Agency (ESA) have started to test ice-penetrating delivery systems that would, presumably, shuttle robotic submarines to the liquid oceans below.
According to the ESA, “Planetary penetrators are mini spacecraft that contain a suite of instruments, but they land at high speed – tens to hundreds of kilometres per hour – compared with the conventional 'soft-landers' that have previously been used in planetary or lunar exploration. One benefit over landers and rovers is that penetrators provide access to the subsurface without the need for additional drilling or digging.”
The ESA’s statement continues, “To test how well the penetrators and their precious instrument cargo would withstand slamming into the surface of a planet at high-speed, a team of scientists and engineers used a rocket test facility in Wales, UK, to propel their model penetrators into either sand or ice.”
Whether or not we end up sending UUV’s to Europa, thanks to the ESA we do know what it looks like when a 20kg projectile fired at 341m/s impacts 10 tons of water ice.
Images and Video Courtesy of ESA