BRUIE Rover is going For a Drill Under Ice

The BRUIE is set to rove under the icy surface of the Antarctic ocean. Looks like a 3-feet space vehicle from the future, BRUIE is a preparation of Earth's beautiful minds to explore life underwater of water planets beyond and within our solar system.

By the next month (December 2019), the Buoyant Rover for Under Ice Exploration is about to take a daring journey under the ice sheets of Antarctica under the control of Australia's Casey Research Station stationed at the South Pole.

The primary reason for choosing the Antarctic ocean to test this rover is to check BURIE's endurance under that harsh environment. Embracing some drills under the freezing ocean, BURIE will become a most trusted, durable, and versatile rover to test a water planet and moons like Enceladus as the scientists of Earth believe that those places are much likely to possess life or its traces.

Icy oceans of Antarctica is much similar to the lunar oceans like Europa and Enceladus. Kevin Hand, the lead scientist of the BRUIE project of Jet Propulsion Laboratory, believes that that the chemistry of ice sheets covering the oceans of the distant planets and moons are more capable of feeding life under the waters, similarly like our polar ice sheets. He wanted the BRUIE to help him learn more about a particular place where the ice and water meet. In other words, the scientist calls the place as "Ice-water interface."

Observation under icy oceans is a really challenging task to do. But, BRUIE is capable of doing that like an intellectual. According to Andy Klesh of JPL, this rover will stay anchored against the ice with the help of its weightlessness, and it powers up its wheels only when it needs to take any action. In the way, BRUIE will stay under the ice sheets for a month and observe the unexplored region.

As per the information is given by JPL, BRUIE will carry all the measuring equipment that is used to record the existence of life. Some of them are instruments to measure water salinity, dissolved oxygen, temperature, and pressure.

For the drill that is about to be conducted on the Antarctic Ocean, the BRUIE will be carrying two HD cameras to live the happenings back to the base. The BRUIE will also be let under the ice tided to the surface and will be untied after a few days to go for a deep dive.