{"id":18000,"date":"2019-06-27T01:47:58","date_gmt":"2019-06-26T17:47:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/rover-teams-practice-for-spelunking-on-the-moon-and-mars-in-california-lava-tubes\/"},"modified":"2019-06-27T01:47:58","modified_gmt":"2019-06-26T17:47:58","slug":"rover-teams-practice-for-spelunking-on-the-moon-and-mars-in-california-lava-tubes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/rover-teams-practice-for-spelunking-on-the-moon-and-mars-in-california-lava-tubes\/","title":{"rendered":"Rover teams practice for spelunking on the moon and Mars in California lava tubes"},"content":{"rendered":"
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NASA\u2019s robotics team drives the test rover, CaveR, into Valentine Cave at Lava Beds National Monument in California. One of the CaveR engineers is perched on a lava ledge, a marker of one of the lava flows in the cave. (NASA Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

BELLEVUE, Wash. \u2014 Underground lava tubes are great places to set up bases on the moon, or look for life on Mars \u2014 but they\u2019ll be super-tricky to navigate. Which is why a NASA team is practicing with a cave rover in California.<\/p>\n

Scientists are sharing their experiences from the Biologic and Resource Analog Investigations in Low Light Environments project, or BRAILLE, here at this week\u2019s Astrobiology Science Conference.<\/p>\n

The site of the experiment is California\u2019s Lava Beds National Monument, which houses North America\u2019s largest network of lava tubes. These are tunnel-like structures left behind by ancient volcanic flows of molten rock. They\u2019re known to exist on the moon and Mars, and in some places there are even openings that make those lava tubes accessible from the surface.<\/p>\n

The underground passageways provide shelter from the harsh radiation hitting the surface of the moon and Mars, which would be a big plus for would-be settlers. There\u2019s even a chance that microbes could find a foothold in lava tubes on Mars, as they do on Earth.<\/p>\n

One of BRAILLE\u2019s big goals is to learn how to use remote-controlled robots to blaze a trail through off-Earth caves. The cave rover, nicknamed CaveR, is the star of the show. During last year\u2019s initial three-week expedition, CaveR was outfitted with imagers and scientific instruments, and then guided through Valentine Cave, one of the more than 750 caves in the Lava Beds system.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were following a mission plan, just like you would for a regular planetary mission,\u201d said BRAILLE principal investigator Jennifer Blank, an astrobiologist at NASA Ames Research Center who\u2019s also affiliated with Seattle\u2019s Blue Marble Space Institute of Science.<\/p>\n

A surface team of planetary scientists drew up the driving instructions for each of CaveR\u2019s forays through Valentine Cave and saved them to a memory card. Then a runner carried the card down to the cave, where a team of engineers would execute the instructions. The data gathered during each drive was stored up and brought back to mission control for analysis. Then the cycle began again.<\/p>\n

Blank said the team decided against trying to beam the commands down to the rover directly. \u201cNASA has that capability, but to incorporate that in our mission simulation would have required another million dollars,\u201d she told GeekWire.<\/p>\n

\"Biomarkers
Ultraviolet light highlights different microbes in the caves, as seen by the green, yellow and orange colonies that drape below small mineralized finger-like structures that jut upward from a ledge in the cave. These structures, growing against gravity and formed by the interaction of rock, water and microbes, are biomineral markers that record signs of life in the rock record. (NASA Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While the planetary scientists pored over the rover data, a different team composed of expert microbiologists checked out the cave on foot. Both teams spotted telltale signs of microbial life, in the form of tiny outcroppings that look like coral.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first group saw the microbial features as strange crystals, unusual features to examine \u2026 The second group, right away they saw that they were biomarkers,\u201d Blank said. \u201cIt really shows that a diverse team is very valuable.\u201d<\/p>\n

BRAILLE\u2019s researchers scraped samples from several caves in the Lava Beds system, and they plan to return for another round of exploration later this year. They\u2019re also working on artificial intelligence tools that could sift through rover imagery and identify potential hotspots for life. It\u2019s not exactly a new idea: NASA is already using an autonomous sample targeting system known as AEGIS on its Mars Curiosity rover.<\/p>\n

CaveR\u2019s exploits in California should help scientists figure out what to look for when next-generation robots go spelunking on the Red Planet. \u201cIf we\u2019re so lucky to go to a cave on Mars, and so lucky to find signs of life protected from the harsh surface environment and had to pick a target, what would we interrogate?\u201d Blank said.<\/p>\n

Lava-tube rovers would be used for different purposes on the moon. \u201cWe don\u2019t think there\u2019s life to find<\/em> on the moon now, but someday the life on the moon might be us,\u201d Blank explained in a NASA news release. \u201cAnd if I were going to the moon, I\u2019d want to go to a lava tube.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rovers could create detailed maps of the underground passageways, looking for fractures, cave-ins or other structural issues that would pose problems for a potential moon base. They could also look for signs of water ice that could sustain a moon base, above or below ground.<\/p>\n

One of the instruments on CaveR is the Near-Infrared Volatiles Spectrometer System, or NIRVSS (pronounced like \u201cnervous\u201d). That instrument is designed to identify frozen water that\u2019s present in rocks and soil \u2014 and a flight-ready version could be sent to the moon on a rover as early as next year.<\/p>\n