Teredo IceShuttle - Bringing together under-ice deployment, sensor platform, docking, launch and recovery in a small diameter vehicle design

Abstract :

The search for life elsewhere in the universe is one of the driving forces for space exploration. Concerning this, during the last decades Jupiter’s icy moon Europa gained increasing interest within the scientific community. Sealed below a thick crust of ice the moon harbors a global ocean that carries twice as much water compared to all liquid water on earth. While the exploration of this distant world is of great interest for exobiologists and planetary scientists, the requirements for such a mission are high. Within the Europa Explorer project a first mission concept was created, including the development of an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) and an ice drill that is designed to transport the AUV through the ice into the unknown ocean. The ice drill is therefore described as IceShuttle. Since the IceShuttle is also supposed to carry additional equipment, function as a docking station, as well as a sensor carrier for navigation, while having a strong limitation for its cross section, all components of the system have to be lined up in series. This required an unfolding and deployment strategy to be developed, which is a key element of the IceShuttle and is described within the poster.