Grover the rover set to explore Greenland: Nasa's latest vehicle to unlock the secrets hidden beneath two-mile thick ice sheets
Nasa is hoping to discover exactly what lies beneath the two-mile thick ice sheets in Greenland by sending in a remote-controlled, solar-powered robot called Grover.
The Greenland Rover and Goddard Remotely Operated Vehicle for Exploration and Research (Grover) sends radio wave pulses
into the ice sheet using its built-in radar.
These waves bounce off anything buried within the ice, and can tell researchers more about the characteristics of the snow and ice layers.
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A prototype of GROVER, minus its solar panels. The student-designed rover is studying the two-mile thick sheet of ice at the Summit Camp in Greenland to see what damage is being caused by global warming
Students from a Nasa Goddard summer engineering boot camp test two prototypes of GROVER at a beach in Asseteague Island, Maryland in 2011. The prototype in front is similar to the one NASA is testing in Greenland this month
HOW DOES GROVER WORK?
The tank-like Grover prototype is six feet tall, including its solar panels.
It weighs about 800lbs and drives over the ice on two repurposed snowmobile tracks.
Grover crawls at an average speed of 1.2 mph.
The robot is powered entirely by solar energy, so it can operate in polar environments without adding to air pollution.
The panels are mounted in an inverted V, allowing them to collect energy from the sun and sunlight reflected off the ice sheet.
A ground-penetrating radar powered by two rechargeable batteries on the back of the rover.
The radar sends radio wave pulses into the ice sheet, and the waves bounce off buried features, informing researchers about the characteristics of the snow and ice layers.
Almost 97 per cent of Greenland's surface layer melted in summer 2012 because of rising temperatures.
Scientists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt Maryland expect Grover to detect the layer of the ice sheet that formed after this melting occurred.
Grover was developed in 2010 and 2011 by teams of students participating in summer engineering boot camps at Goddard.
The ice sheet study will take place on a spot of ice near a research station called Summit Camp.
The station is operated by the National Science Foundation.
At this spot, the ice sheet is predicted to be about two miles thick.
Because the sun never dips below the horizon during the Arctic summer, Grover can work at any time during the day and should be able to work longer and gather more data than a human on a snowmobile.
'Robots like Groverwill give us a new tool for glaciology studies,' said Lora Koenig, a glaciologist at Goddard and science advisor on the project.
Koenig hopes more radar data will help shed light on Greenland's snow accumulation, and loss.
Scientists compare annual accumulation to the volume of ice lost to sea each year to calculate the ice sheet's overall mass balance and its contribution to sea level rise.
GROVER will crawl at an average speed of 1.2mph. A built-in radar sends radio wave pulses into the ice sheet, and the waves bounce off buried features, informing researchers about the characteristics of the snow and ice layers
Research with polar rovers costs less than aircraft or satellites, which are traditionally used for this kind of work.
Grover will be joined on the ice sheet in June by another robot, called Cool Robot, developed at Dartmouth College, in New Hampshire.
Cool Robot rover can carry a variety of instrument packages to conduct glaciological and atmospheric sampling studies.
VIDEO: See the Nasa GROVER in action
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