Conceptual Design of Submarine to Explore Europa’s Oceans

Abstract

A conceptual design of an unmanned robot submarine is presented to explore one of the moons of the planet Jupiter, namely, Europa. This moon is a little smaller than our Earth’s moon but contains a lot of water; in fact the oceans on Europa are some 96 km deep and contain about 5 times the amount of water that our Earth’s oceans contain. Thus, it is likely that large sea animals may exist on Europa supported by hydrothermal vents and these animals will prove of interest to scientists. To satisfy these scientific interests, it is the writer’s belief that a robot submarine will be landing on Europa within the next 20 years . This paper discusses some of the problems that will be encountered in the design, construction, and operation of this robot submarine. For example, even though the internal diameter of the submarine may only be 1 m , it will not be possible to build the submarine from a metal; as such a structure will have no reserve buoyancy and will sink like a stone to the bottom of the ocean. Even v...