EELS (Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor)

Team members from JPL test EELS at a ski resort in the Southern California mountains in February 2023. Designed to sense its environment, calculate risk, travel, and gather data without real-time human input, EELS could eventually explore destinations throughout the solar system.

Interns Jack Naish, left, and Guglielmo Daddi work on a version of the EELS robot during an April 2023 test in the Mars Yard at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Members of JPL’s EELS team lower the robot’s sensor head – which uses lidar and stereo cameras to map its environment – into a vertical shaft called a moulin on Athabasca Glacier in Alberta in September 2022. The team will return to the location in 2023 and 2024 for additional tests with versions of the full snake robot.

From left, EELS team members Hiro Ono, Rohan Thakker, Marlin Strub, and Michael Paton carry a prototype of the robot onto the ice for a field test at an ice rink in Pasadena in August 2022.

Principal Investigator Hiro Ono, just right of center, and members of JPL’s EELS team celebrate the first field test of a prototype of the robot at an ice rink in Pasadena, California, in August 2022.

A version of JPL’s EELS robot raises its sensor head during a field test in the snow at a ski resort in the San Bernardino Mountains of Southern California in February 2023.

JPL’s EELS robot (version 1.5, designed for testing subsurface autonomy software) gets lowered by rope into a vertical shaft in the ice on Athabasca Glacier in Alberta, Canada, during a field test in September 2023.

Version 1.0 of JPL’s EELS robot raises its sensor head during a field test at Athabasca Glacier in Alberta, Canada, in September 2023. The operators in the background are sending commands and monitoring the robot’s activities.

Members of the field test team for JPL’s EELS project prepare to test version 1.5 of the robot – seen on a metal stand at right – at Athabasca Glacier in Alberta, Canada, in September 2023.

Members of the field test team for JPL’s EELS robotics project move version 1.5 of the robot across the ice on a sled at Athabasca Glacier in Alberta, Canada, in September 2023.

Morgan Cable, science lead of JPL’s EELS robotics project, lowers herself into a glacial shaft called a moulin during field testing of the robot at Athabasca Glacier in Alberta, Canada, in September 2023.

Inside a glacial shaft called a moulin, Morgan Cable, right, science lead for JPL’s EELS robotics project, and Alex Gardner, Earth science lead for the project, look at data on a cellphone during a field test at Athabasca Glacier in Alberta, Canada, in September 2023.

Sarah Yearicks, left, field logistics coordinator for JPL’s EELS field test, waits inside an opening in the ice called a moulin while version 1.5 of the robot, center, is prepared for a field test at Athabasca Glacier in Alberta, Canada, in September 2023.

Members of the EELS field test team prepare version 1.5 of the EELS robot to be lowered into an opening in the ice called a moulin for a field test at Athabasca Glacier in Alberta, Canada, in September 2023.

Morgan Cable, science lead for JPL’s EELS robotics project, works inside a glacial channel during a field test at Athabasca Glacier in Alberta, Canada, in September 2023.

A member of the field safety team works inside a shaft in the ice called a moulin during a field test for JPL’s EELS robotics project at Athabasca Glacier in Alberta, Canada, in September 2023.

Tomas Drevinskas, a member of JPL’s EELS team, works on a prototype instrument inside a tent at Athabasca Glacier in Alberta, Canada, in September 2023. Designed to fit into the EELS robot’s science payload segment, the capillary electrophoresis instrument would look for signs of life by analyzing the chemical makeup of samples taken from surrounding ice and water.

Version 1.0 of JPL’s EELS robot raises its head from the icy surface of Athabasca Glacier in Alberta, Canada, during field testing in September 2023. An early technology development project, EELS is being built to autonomously explore a variety of terrain conditions too challenging for robots currently used for solar system exploration.

Michael Paton, far right, EELS field test lead and deputy autonomy lead, works with EELS field team members to prepare the snake robot for a test at Athabasca Glacier in Alberta, Canada, in September 2023. From left, Guglielmo Daddi, Christian Stenner, Marlin Strub, and Paton.

Members of JPL’s EELS team pose in front of the vehicle that transported them onto Athabasca Glacier in Alberta, Canada, in September 2023 for two weeks of field testing.

Version 1.0 of JPL’s EELS robot is seen at Athabasca Glacier in the Canadian Rockies during a field test in September 2023.