Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Carolyn Parcheta, a postdoctoral fellow at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, plans to take this robot, VolcanoBot 2, to explore Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano in March 2015.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Volcano-exploring robots are being developed and tested, machinery that might be used for studying long-gone or still active extraterrestrial volcanoes.

For example, on both Earth and Mars, fissures are the most common physical features from which magma erupts. This is probably also true for the previously active volcanoes on the Moon, Mercury, Enceladus and Europa, although the mechanism of volcanic eruption — whether past or present — on these other planetary bodies is unknown.

That’s the word from Carolyn Parcheta, a postdoctoral fellow at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif.

VolcanoBot 1, shown here in a lava tube — a structure formed by lava — explored the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii in May 2014. The robot is enabling researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to put together a 3-D map of the fissure.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

VolcanoBot 1

Parcheta and her co-advisor, JPL robotics researcher Aaron Parness, are developing robots that can get into crevices where humans wouldn’t be able to go, gaining new insights about these geological features.

Their experiments in May 2014 show that exploring volcanoes with robots is “on a roll.”

They had VolcanoBot 1 roll down a fissure — a crack that erupts magma — that is now inactive on the active Kilauea volcano in Hawaii.

Mapping magma pathways

VolcanoBot 1 is a two-wheeled robot with a length of 12 inches (30 centimeters) and 6.7-inch (17-centimeter) wheels.

VolcanoBot 1 was tasked with mapping the pathways of magma from May 5 to 9, 2014. It was able to descend to depths of 82 feet (25 meters) in two locations on the fissure, although it could have gone deeper with a longer tether, as the bottom was not reached on either descent, according to a press statement from JPL’s Elizabeth Landau.

Two robots designed to explore volcanoes are pictured here. VolcanoBot 1 (right) has a length of 12 inches (30 centimeters) and 6.7-inch (17-centimeter) wheels. VolcanoBot 2 (left) is smaller, as it is 10 inches (25 centimeters) long and has 5 inch (12 centimeter) wheels.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Plans are now being shaped to take VolcanoBot 2 and explore Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano in March 2015.

As deep space exploration plans jell – particularly at Mars — robotic and human capabilities are both key elements in safely opening up and accessing a range of sites on the Red Planet. Gaining entry into the Mars underground via human-controlled robots may well yield a bonanza of surprises.

Humans and robots on Mars are likely to team up to augment the types of exploration avenues that can be done on the Red Planet.
Credit: NASA/Ames Research Center