Ice-embedded transceivers for Europa cryobot communications

Abstract

Several studies have been conducted to design robotic exploration vehicles for investigating a sub-surface water ocean within Jupiter's moon Europa. The current data from the Galileo spacecraft indicates a possible sub-surface ocean of undetermined depth covered by a water ice crust on the order of 10 kilometres thick. The ice crust also flexes several tens of metres every Europan day due to tidal forces. This presents several design challenges, especially for the communications link back to the science team on Earth. This paper presents the modeling and analysis for a communications system that uses transceivers embedded within the ice crust. The work was done for a design study that examined using ice-embedded transceivers to communicate between a deep ice penetration "cryobot" at the liquid water ocean and a communications package on the Europan surface. This paper focuses on the microwave properties of ice and the communications link margin analysis.