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Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM

Monday, January 28, 2008 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium

picture of DEPTHX
Artist's conception, courtesy CMU

William Stone

"DEPTHX and ENDURANCE: Autonomous Underwater Robots that are Paving the Way to Europa "

ABSTRACT -- DEPTHX (Deep Phreatic Thermal Explorer), NASA’s deep-water robot, investigated one of Earth’s deepest sinkholes, Mexico’s El Zacatón, during a mission that may help lay the foundation for exploring the cold oceans of Jupiter’s moon Europa. With more than 100 sensors, 36 onboard computers, and 16 thrusters and actuators, it decides where to swim, which samples to collect and how to get home. In May of 2007 DEPTHX autonomously descended into Zacaton, collected a wall core sample and safely returned to the surface, all without scripted instructions. Two days later, again operating without a tether, DEPTHX further explored and mapped Zacaton, using a novel form of three-dimensional navigation known as Simultaneous Localization and Mapping. This talk will discuss that mission and the overall design and technologies associated with this state-of-the-art robotic vehicle.

SPEAKER -- Aside from engineering, Dr. William (Bill) Stone is one of the world's foremost expeditionary cavers, exploring deep caves, sometimes with manned and un-manned vehicles. He has participated in more than 50 international expeditions and has personally logged 411 days working from subterranean camps as deep as -1200 meters below the surface. Dr. Stone, who earned a Ph.D. in Structural Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, is President and CEO of Stone Aerospace – the prime designer and system integrator of the ENDURANCE AUV (autonomous underwater vehicle) that is scheduled to explore the sub-ice world of West Lake Bonney, Antarctica beginning in October as part of Phase 2 on the path-to-mission to Europa.

One of Stone's more legendary underground adventures (in the storied Sistema Huautla in Oaxaca, Mexico) is chronicled in his book, “Beyond the Deep: The Deadly Descent Into the World's Most Treacherous Cave”, which he co-authored with Barbara am Ende and Monte Paulsen. In 2007, along with other Texan investors and engineers, he founded the Shackleton Energy Company, which seeks to raise private venture capital to mine Shackleton crater at the moon’s south pole for water ice and sell it in Low Earth Orbit.


Engineering Colloquium home page: https://ecolloq.gsfc.nasa.gov