spindle

SPINDLE (Sub-glacial Polar Ice Navigation, Descent, and Lake Exploration) is a 2-stage autonomous vehicle system consisting of a robotic ice-penetrating carrier vehicle (cryobot) and an autonomous submersible HAUV (hovering autonomous underwater vehicle).
The cryobot is designed to descend through an ice body into a sub-surface ocean and deploy the HAUV submersible to conduct long range reconnaissance, life search, and sample collection. The HAUV submersible will return to, and auto-dock with, the cryobot at the conclusion of the mission for subsequent data uplink and sample return to the surface.
The SPINDLE designed is targeted at sub-glacial lakes such as Lake Vostok and South Pole Lake in Antarctica. SPINDLE would develop the technologies for a Flagship-class mission to either the shallow lakes of Jupiter's moon Europa, the sub-surface ocean of Ganymede, or the geyser sources on both Europa and Enceladus. The project is funded by NASA and is being designed at Stone Aerospace under the supervision of Principal Investigator Bill Stone.

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