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By NASA
A prototype of a robot built to access underwater areas where Antarctic ice shelves meet land is lowered through the ice during a field test north of Alaska in March. JPL is developing the concept, called IceNode, to take melt-rate measurements that would improve the accuracy of sea level rise projections.U.S. Navy/Scott Barnes Conducted through the U.S. Navy Arctic Submarine Laboratory’s biennial Ice Camp, this field test marked IceNode’s first in a polar environment. The team hopes to one day deploy a fleet of the autonomous robots beneath Antarctic ice shelves.U.S. Navy/Scott Barnes Called IceNode, the project envisions a fleet of autonomous robots that would help determine the melt rate of ice shelves.
On a remote patch of the windy, frozen Beaufort Sea north of Alaska, engineers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California huddled together, peering down a narrow hole in a thick layer of sea ice. Below them, a cylindrical robot gathered test science data in the frigid ocean, connected by a tether to the tripod that had lowered it through the borehole.
This test gave engineers a chance to operate their prototype robot in the Arctic. It was also a step toward the ultimate vision for their project, called IceNode: a fleet of autonomous robots that would venture beneath Antarctic ice shelves to help scientists calculate how rapidly the frozen continent is losing ice — and how fast that melting could cause global sea levels to rise.
Warming Waters, Treacherous Terrain
If melted completely, Antarctica’s ice sheet would raise global sea levels by an estimated 200 feet (60 meters). Its fate represents one of the greatest uncertainties in projections of sea level rise. Just as warming air temperatures cause melting at the surface, ice also melts when in contact with warm ocean water circulating below. To improve computer models predicting sea level rise, scientists need more accurate melt rates, particularly beneath ice shelves — miles-long slabs of floating ice that extend from land. Although they don’t add to sea level rise directly, ice shelves crucially slow the flow of ice sheets toward the ocean.
A remote camera captured an IceNode prototype deployed below the frozen surface of Lake Superior, off Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, during a field test in 2022. The three thin legs of the robot’s “landing gear” affix the prototype to the icy ceiling.NASA/JPL-Caltech The challenge: The places where scientists want to measure melting are among Earth’s most inaccessible. Specifically, scientists want to target the underwater area known as the “grounding zone,” where floating ice shelves, ocean, and land meet — and to peer deep inside unmapped cavities where ice may be melting the fastest. The treacherous, ever-shifting landscape above is dangerous for humans, and satellites can’t see into these cavities, which are sometimes beneath a mile of ice. IceNode is designed to solve this problem.
“We’ve been pondering how to surmount these technological and logistical challenges for years, and we think we’ve found a way,” said Ian Fenty, a JPL climate scientist and IceNode’s science lead. “The goal is getting data directly at the ice-ocean melting interface, beneath the ice shelf.”
Floating Fleet
Harnessing their expertise in designing robots for space exploration, IceNode’s engineers are developing vehicles about 8 feet (2.4 meters) long and 10 inches (25 centimeters) in diameter, with three-legged “landing gear” that springs out from one end to attach the robot to the underside of the ice. The robots don’t feature any form of propulsion; instead, they would position themselves autonomously with the help of novel software that uses information from models of ocean currents.
JPL’s IceNode project is designed for one of Earth’s most inaccessible locations: underwater cavities deep beneath Antarctic ice shelves. The goal is getting melt-rate data directly at the ice-ocean interface in areas where ice may be melting the fastest. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Released from a borehole or a vessel in the open ocean, the robots would ride those currents on a long journey beneath an ice shelf. Upon reaching their targets, the robots would each drop their ballast and rise to affix themselves to the bottom of the ice. Their sensors would measure how fast warm, salty ocean water is circulating up to melt the ice, and how quickly colder, fresher meltwater is sinking.
The IceNode fleet would operate for up to a year, continuously capturing data, including seasonal fluctuations. Then the robots would detach themselves from the ice, drift back to the open ocean, and transmit their data via satellite.
“These robots are a platform to bring science instruments to the hardest-to-reach locations on Earth,” said Paul Glick, a JPL robotics engineer and IceNode’s principal investigator. “It’s meant to be a safe, comparatively low-cost solution to a difficult problem.”
Arctic Field Test
While there is additional development and testing ahead for IceNode, the work so far has been promising. After previous deployments in California’s Monterey Bay and below the frozen winter surface of Lake Superior, the Beaufort Sea trip in March 2024 offered the first polar test. Air temperatures of minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 45 Celsius) challenged humans and robotic hardware alike.
The test was conducted through the U.S. Navy Arctic Submarine Laboratory’s biennial Ice Camp, a three-week operation that provides researchers a temporary base camp from which to conduct field work in the Arctic environment.
As the prototype descended about 330 feet (100 meters) into the ocean, its instruments gathered salinity, temperature, and flow data. The team also conducted tests to determine adjustments needed to take the robot off-tether in future.
“We’re happy with the progress. The hope is to continue developing prototypes, get them back up to the Arctic for future tests below the sea ice, and eventually see the full fleet deployed underneath Antarctic ice shelves,” Glick said. “This is valuable data that scientists need. Anything that gets us closer to accomplishing that goal is exciting.”
IceNode has been funded through JPL’s internal research and technology development program and its Earth Science and Technology Directorate. JPL is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California.
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By NASA
5 Min Read NASA Returns to Arctic Studying Summer Sea Ice Melt
NASA's Gulfstream III aircraft taxis on the runway at Pituffik Space Base as it begins one of its daily science flights for the ARCSIX mission. Credits: NASA/Gary Banziger What happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic, and a new NASA mission is helping improve data modeling and increasing our understanding of Earth’s rapidly changing climate. Changing ice, ocean, and atmospheric conditions in the northernmost part of Earth have a large impact on the entire planet. That’s because the Arctic region acts like Earth’s air conditioner.
Much of the Sun’s energy is transported from tropical regions of our planet by winds and weather systems into the Arctic where it is then lost to space. This process helps cool the planet.
The NASA-sponsored Arctic Radiation Cloud Aerosol Surface Interaction Experiment (ARCSIX) mission is flying three aircraft over the Arctic Ocean north of Greenland to study these processes. The aircraft are equipped with instruments to gather observations of surface sea ice, clouds, and aerosol particles, which affect the Arctic energy budget and cloud properties. The energy budget is the balance between the energy that Earth receives from the Sun and the energy the Earth loses to outer space.
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This highlight video gives viewers a front row seat to a typical day on the ARCSIX mission from Pituffik Space Base as NASA's research scientists, instrument operators, and flight crews fly daily routes observing sea ice and clouds 750 miles north of the Arctic Circle in Greenland.NASA/Gary Banziger “More sea ice makes that air conditioning effect more efficient. Less sea ice lessens the Arctic’s cooling effect,” says Patrick Taylor, a climate scientist at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. “Over the last 40 years, The Arctic has lost a significant amount of sea ice making the Arctic warm faster. As the Arctic warms and sea ice melts, it can cause ripple effects that impact weather conditions thousands of miles away, how fast our seas are rising, and how much flooding we get in our neighborhoods.”
As the Arctic warms and sea ice melts, it can cause ripple effects…thousands of miles away.
Patrick Taylor
NASA Climate Research Scientist
The first series of flights took place in May and June as the seasonal melting of ice started. Flights began again on July 24 during the summer season, when sea ice melting is at its most intense.
“We can’t do this kind of Arctic science without having two campaigns,” said Taylor, the deputy science lead for ARCSIX. “The sea ice surface in the spring was very bright white and snow covered. We saw some breaks in the ice. What we will see in the second campaign is less sea ice and sea ice that is bare, with no snow. It will be covered with all kinds of melt ponds – pooling water on top of the ice – that changes the way the ice interacts with sunlight and potentially changes how the ice interacts with the atmosphere and clouds above.”
Sea ice and the snow on top of the ice insulate the ocean from the atmosphere, reflecting the Sun’s radiation back towards space, and helping to cool the planet. Less sea ice and darker surfaces result in more of the Sun’s radiation being absorbed at the surface or trapped between the surface and the clouds.
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A pilot's view of Arctic sea ice from NASA's P-3 Orion aircraft during NASA's ARCSIX airborne science mission flights in June.NASA/Gary Banziger Understanding this relationship, and the role clouds play in the system, will help scientists improve satellite data and better predict future changes in the Arctic climate.
“This unique team of pilots, engineers, scientists, and aircraft can only be done by leveraging expertise from multiple NASA centers and our partners,” said Linette Boisvert, cryosphere lead for the mission from NASA’s Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “We gathered great data of the snow and ice pre-melt and at the onset of melt. I can’t wait to see the changes at the height of melt as we measure the same areas covered with melt ponds.”
NASA partnered with the University of Colorado Boulder for the ARCSIX mission, and the research team found some surprises in their early data analysis from the spring campaign. One potential discovery is something Taylor is calling a “sea ice sandwich”, when a younger layer of sea ice is caught in between two layers of older sea ice. Scientists also found more drizzle within the clouds than expected. Both observations will need further investigating once the data is fully processed.
A research scientist monitors data measurements in-flight during the spring campaign of the ARCSIX mission.NASA/Gary Banziger “A volcano erupted in Iceland, and we believe the volcanic aerosol plume was indicated by our models four days later,” Taylor said. “Common scientific knowledge tells us volcanic particles, like ash and sulfate, would have already been removed from the atmosphere. More work needs to be done, but our initial results suggest these particles might live in the atmosphere much longer than previously thought.”
Previous studies suggest that aerosol particles in clouds can influence sea ice melt. Data collected during ARCSIX’s spring flights showed the Arctic atmosphere had several aerosol particle layers, including wildfire smoke, pollution, and dust transported from Asia and North America.
“We got everything we hoped for and more in the first campaign,” Taylor added. “The data from this summer will help us better understand how clouds and sea ice behave. We’ll be able to use these results to improve predictive models. In the coming years, scientists will be able to better predict how to mitigate and adapt to the rapid changes in climate we’re seeing in the Arctic.”
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Last Updated Jul 26, 2024 EditorCharles G. HatfieldContactCharles G. Hatfieldcharles.g.hatfield@nasa.govLocationLangley Research Center Related Terms
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By NASA
4 Min Read California Teams Win $1.5 Million in NASA’s Break the Ice Lunar Challenge
By Savannah Bullard
After two days of live competitions, two teams from southern California are heading home with a combined $1.5 million from NASA’s Break the Ice Lunar Challenge.
The husband-and-wife duo of Terra Engineering, Valerie and Todd Mendenhall, receive the $1 million prize Wednesday, June 12, for winning the final phase of NASA’s Break the Ice Lunar Challenge at Alabama A&M’s Agribition Center in Huntsville, Alabama. With the Terra Engineering team at the awards ceremony are from left Daniel K. Wims, Alabama A&M University president; Joseph Pelfrey, NASA Marshall Space Flight center director; NASA’s Break the Ice Challenge Manager Naveen Vetcha; and Majed El-Dweik, Alabama A&M University’s vice president of research & economic development. NASA/Jonathan Deal Since 2020, competitors from around the world have competed in this challenge with the common goal of inventing robots that can excavate and transport the icy regolith on the Moon. The lunar South Pole is the targeted landing site for crewed Artemis missions, so utilizing all resources in that area, including the ice within the dusty regolith inside the permanently shadowed regions, is vital for the success of a sustained human lunar presence.
On Earth, the mission architectures developed in this challenge aim to help guide machine design and operation concepts for future mining and excavation operations and equipment for decades.
“Break the Ice represents a significant milestone in our journey toward sustainable lunar exploration and a future human presence on the Moon,” said Joseph Pelfrey, Center Director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. “This competition has pushed the boundaries of what is possible by challenging the brightest minds to devise groundbreaking solutions for excavating lunar ice, a crucial resource for future missions. Together, we are forging a future where humanity ventures further into the cosmos than ever before.”
The final round of the Break the Ice competition featured six finalist teams who succeeded in an earlier phase of the challenge. The competition took place at the Alabama A&M Agribition Center in Huntsville, Alabama, on June 11 and 12, where each team put their diverse solutions to the test in a series of trials, using terrestrial resources like gravity-offloading cranes, concrete slabs, and a rocky track with tricky obstacles to mimic the environment on the Moon.
Thehusband-and-wife duo of Terra Engineering took home the top prize for their “Irresistible Object” rover. Team lead Todd Mendenhall competed in NASA’s 2007 Regolith Excavation Challenge, facilitated through NASA’s Centennial Challenges, which led him and Valerie Mendenhall to continue the pursuit of solutions for autonomous lunar excavation.
Starpath Robotics earned the second place prize for its four-wheeled rover that can mine, collect, and haul material during the final phase of NASA’s Break the Ice Lunar Challenge at Alabama A&M’s Agribition Center in Huntsville, Alabama. From left are Matt Kruszynski, Saurav Shroff, Matt Khudari, Alan Hsu, David Aden, Mihir Gondhalekarl, Joshua Huang and Aakash Ramachandran.NASA/Jonathan Deal A small space hardware business, Starpath Robotics, earned the second-place prize for its four-wheeled rover that can mine, collect, and haul material. The team, led by Saurav Shroff and lead engineer Mihir Gondhalekar, developed a robotic mining tool that features a drum barrel scraping mechanism for breaking into the tough lunar surface. This allows the robot to mine material quickly and robustly without sacrificing energy.
“This challenge has been pivotal in advancing the technologies we need to achieve a sustained human presence on the Moon,” said Kim Krome, the Acting Program Manager for NASA’s Centennial Challenges. “Terra Engineering’s rover, especially, bridged several of the technology gaps that we identified – for instance, being robust and resilient enough to traverse rocky landscapes and survive the harsh conditions of the lunar South Pole.”
Beyond the $1.5 million in prize funds, three teams will be given the chance to use Marshall Space Flight Center’s thermal vacuum (TVAC) chambers to continue testing and developing their robots. These chambers use thermal vacuum technologies to create a simulated lunar environment, allowing scientists and researchers to build, test, and approve hardware for flight-ready use.
The following teams performed exceptionally well in the excavation portion of the final competition, earning these invitations to the TVAC facilities:
Terra Engineering (Gardena, California) Starpath Robotics (Hawthorne, California) Michigan Technological University – Planetary Surface Technology Development Lab (Houghton, Michigan) “We’re looking forward to hosting three of our finalists at our thermal vacuum chamber, where they will get full access to continue testing and developing their technologies in our state-of-the-art facilities,” said Break the Ice Challenge Manager Naveen Vetcha, who supports NASA’s Centennial Challenges through Jacobs Space Exploration Group. “Hopefully, these tests will allow the teams to take their solutions to the next level and open the door for opportunities for years to come.”
NASA’s Break the Ice Lunar Challenge is a NASA Centennial Challenge led by the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center, with support from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Centennial Challenges are part of the Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing program under NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. Ensemble Consultancy supports challenge competitors. Alabama A&M University, in coordination with NASA, supports the final competitions and winner event for the challenge.
For more information on Break the Ice, visit:
nasa.gov/breaktheice
Jonathan Deal
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256.544.0034
jonathan.e.deal@nasa.gov
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3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA’s Break the Ice Lunar Challenge will conclude with a final competition, open to the public and media, this June in Huntsville, Alabama.NASA NASA will announce the winners of the final phase of its Break the Ice Lunar Challenge on Wednesday, June 12 at Alabama A&M University’s (AAMU) Agribition Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The challenge aims to develop new technologies that could support a sustained human presence on the Moon by the end of the decade.
Media and the public are invited to watch the six finalists test their robots in live competitions. Opening remarks from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center leadership in Huntsville will begin at 8 a.m. CDT on Tuesday, June 11. Teams will compete from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day during the two-day event, with the winner announcement at 5 p.m. in a ceremony on June 12 at the Agribition Center.
Media interested in covering the event should confirm their attendance with Jonathan Deal by 3 p.m. Monday, June 10, at jonathan.e.deal@nasa.gov.
Each team will focus on mastering two components during the two-day event: excavation and transportation. Six identically sized concrete slabs, measuring about 300 cubic feet, will be placed inside the arena for the finalists’ robots to dig. The slabs will have qualities like the icy regolith found in permanently shadowed craters at the Moon’s South Pole. A gravity-offloading crane system will apply the counterweights on the excavating robots to simulate the one-sixth gravity experienced on the Moon.
Each team will have one hour to dig as much material as possible or until they reach the payload capacity of their excavation robot. Up to three top-performing teams can test their solution inside one of NASA Marshall’s thermal vacuum chambers, which can simulate the temperature and vacuum conditions at the lunar South Pole.
Outside the Agribition Center, challenge teams will take turns on a custom-built track outfitted with slopes, boulders, pebbles, rocks, and gravel to simulate the lunar surface. This volatile surface will stretch approximately 300 meters and include several twists and turns for more intermediate handling. Each team will get one hour on the track to deliver a payload and return to the starting point. Times, distances, and pitfalls will be recorded independently.
After this event, the first-place winner will receive $1 million, and the second-place winner will receive $500,000.
The awards ceremony will be livestreamed on Marshall YouTube and NASA Prize Facebook.
Since 2020, competitors have worked to design, build, and test icy regolith excavation and transportation technologies for near-term lunar missions that address key operational elements and environmental constraints. The six finalists who succeeded in Phase 2: Level 2 of the challenge were announced in December 2023.
On Earth, the mission architectures developed in this challenge aim to help guide machine design and operation concepts for future mining and excavation operations and equipment for decades.
Located a few miles east of the AAMU campus, the Agribition (“agriculture” plus “exhibition”) Center is managed by the Alabama Cooperative Extension System with support from AAMU and its College of Agricultural, Life, and Natural Sciences.
The Break the Ice Lunar Challenge is a NASA Centennial Challenge led by the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center, supported by NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Centennial Challenges are part of the Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing program led by NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate and managed at NASA Marshall. Ensemble Consultancy supports the management of competitors for this challenge.
Learn more about Break the Ice.
Jonathan Deal
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256-544-0034
jonathan.e.deal@nasa.gov
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4 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
It’s not just rising air and water temperatures influencing the decades-long decline of Arctic sea ice. Clouds, aerosols, even the bumps and dips on the ice itself can play a role. To explore how these factors interact and impact sea ice melting, NASA is flying two aircraft equipped with scientific instruments over the Arctic Ocean north of Greenland this summer. The first flights of the field campaign, called ARCSIX (Arctic Radiation Cloud Aerosol Surface Interaction Experiment), successfully began taking measurements on May 28.
Two NASA aircraft are taking coordinated measurements of clouds, aerosols and sea ice in the Arctic this summer as part of the ARCSIX field campaign. In this image from Thursday, May 30, NASA’s P-3 aircraft takes off from Pituffik Space Base in northwest Greenland behind the agency’s Gulfstream III aircraft.Credit: NASA/Dan Chirica “The ARCSIX mission aims to measure the evolution of the sea ice pack over the course of an entire summer,” said Patrick Taylor, deputy science lead with the campaign from NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. “There are many different factors that influence the sea ice. We’re measuring them to determine which were most important to melting ice this summer.”
On a completely clear day over smooth sea ice, most sunlight would reflect back into the atmosphere, which is one way that sea ice cools the planet. But when the ice has ridges or darker melt ponds — or is dotted with pollutants — it can change the equation, increasing the amount of ice melt. In the atmosphere, cloudy conditions and drifting aerosols also impact the rate of melt.
“An important goal of ARCSIX is to better understand the surface radiation budget — the energy interacting with the ice and the atmosphere,” said Rachel Tilling, a campaign scientist from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
About 75 scientists, instrument operators, and flight crew are participating in ARCSIX’s two segments based out of Pituffik Space Base in northwest Greenland. The first three-week deployment, in May and June of this year, is timed to document the start of the ice melt season. The second deployment will occur in July and August to monitor late summer conditions and the start of the freeze-up period.
“Scientists from three key disciplines came together for ARCSIX: sea ice surface researchers, aerosol researchers, and cloud researchers,” Tilling said. “Each of us has been working to understand the radiation budget in our specific area, but we’ve brought all three areas together for this campaign.”
Two aircraft will fly over the Arctic during each deployment. NASA’s P-3 Orion aircraft from the agency’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, will fly below the clouds at times to document the surface properties of the ice and the amount of energy radiating off it. The team will also fly the aircraft through the clouds to sample aerosol particles, cloud optical properties, chemistry, and other atmospheric components.
A Gulfstream III aircraft, managed by NASA Langley, will fly higher in the atmosphere to observe properties of the tops of the clouds, take profiles of the atmosphere above the ice, and add a perspective similar to that of orbiting satellites.
The teams will also compare airborne data with satellite data. Satellite instruments like the Multi-angle Imaging Spectroradiometer and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer will provide additional information about clouds and aerosol particles, while the Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite 2 will provide insights into the ice topography below both satellites and aircraft.
The aircraft will fly coordinated routes to take measurements of the atmosphere above ice in three-dimensional space, said Sebastian Schmidt, the mission’s science lead with the University of Colorado Boulder.
“The area off the northern coast of Greenland can be considered the last bastion of multi-year sea ice, as the Arctic transitions to a seasonally ice-free ocean,” Schmidt said. “By observing here, we will gain insight into cloud-aerosol-sea ice-interaction processes of the ‘old’ and ‘new’ Arctic — all while improving satellite-based remote sensing by comparing what we’re seeing with the airborne and satellite instruments.”
By Kate Ramsayer
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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Last Updated May 31, 2024 EditorKate D. RamsayerContactKate D. Ramsayerkate.d.ramsayer@nasa.govLocationGoddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
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