NASA Tests Swimming Robots for Exploring Oceans on Icy Moons

A futuristic NASA mission concept envisions a swarm of dozens of self-propelled, cellphone-size robots exploring the oceans beneath the icy shells of moons like Jupiter’s Europa and Saturn’s Enceladus, looking for chemical and temperature signals that could point to life. A series of prototypes for the concept, called SWIM (Sensing With Independent Micro-swimmers), braved the waters of a competition swim pool at Caltech in Pasadena, California, for testing in 2024. The prototype used in most of the pool tests was about 16.5 inches (42 centimeters) long, weighing 5 pounds (2.3 kilograms). As conceived for spaceflight, the robots would have dimensions about three times smaller — tiny compared to existing remotely operated and autonomous underwater scientific vehicles. Led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, the SWIM project was supported by NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts program under the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. Work on the project took place from spring 2021 to fall 2024. More information about SWIM can be found at: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-ocean-world-explorers-have-to-swim-before-they-can-fly/ Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech