Over the past three years Stone Aerospace has developed a novel ice penetrating technology known as a Direct Laser Penetration (DLP). DLP uses laser light carried by an optical fiber to a vertically descending ice penetrator and emitted from the nose to melt the ice in front of it at extremely high power levels and melt rates. A penetrator can be made with an onboard fiber spool connected to a surface-based laser, allowing the hole to re-freeze behind, drastically increasing efficiency and providing isolation from the surface. A parallel spool can pay out a communications fiber to carry information from imagers, fiber-based sensors (e.g. temperature, pressure, seismic), and other optical sensors (e.g. fluorescence or Raman). Laser power levels of up to 100 kW (continuous) at 1070 nm wavelength are now available and can be coupled to these probes. Successful laboratory test results at Antarctic ice temperatures show that this approach could lead to the fastest ice penetration rate available to terrestrial targets, with access to any Antarctic sub-glacial lake in under 16 hours. In this way, DLP offers an alternative to traditional, logistically intense ice drilling: a small footprint system that is fast and can deploy sensor strings through the deepest ice in a short period of time. DLP also shows promise in addressing the ‘starting problem’ for extraterrestrial targets such as Europa or Mars where low pressures prevent the formation of water at the surface and thus heat transfer for traditional melt probe architectures. In order to test the effectiveness of this concept, a Europa environment ‘cryovac’ test facility has been built at Stone Aerospace in Austin, Texas. We will discuss quantitative results from initial lab and chamber tests of the DLP concept, including in an ice column at 100 K temperature subjected to vacuum.

Stone Aerospace is developing the SUNFISH® autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) which addresses many of the challenges of remote, autonomous exploration in unstructured environments such as the Ocean Worlds of the outer Solar System. The descendant of larger AUVs developed at Stone Aerospace (e.g. the NASA-funded DEPTHX, ENDURANCE, and ARTEMIS vehicles), SUNFISH is miniaturized, person-portable, six-degree-of-freedom (6-DOF) hovering vehicle with built-in precision navigation and control, multibeam mapping, imaging, and CTD capabilities. It was designed to be a highly-capable platform for operating in a wide variety of complex 3D spaces, ranging from man-made (e.g. piers) to natural (e.g. reefs, caves, and under ice). Building on these base functionalities, we have developed high-level capabilities for performing simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), exploration, path planning, and precision return home and docking. We describe these capabilities, and present a demonstration in the unstructured labyrinthine 3D environment of Peacock Springs in Florida, USA. SUNFISH and its technologies have direct application in several astrobiology-relevant goals, including furthering exploration and life search strategies for Ocean Worlds, as well as enabling Earth-analog fieldwork in structurally complex, remote aqueous environments such as caves, under ice shelves, or in sub-glacial lakes.