NASA Rover GROVER: Prototype Set to Explore Greenland Ice Sheet

The tank-like GROVER prototype stands six feet tall, including its solar panels. 

It weighs about 800 pounds and traverses the ice on two repurposed snowmobile tracks. 

The robot is powered entirely by solar energy, so it can operate in pristine 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.

NASA's newest scientific rover is set for testing May 3 through June 8 in the highest part of Greenland.

The robot known as GROVER, which stands for both Greenland Rover and Goddard Remotely Operated Vehicle for Exploration and Research, will roam the frigid landscape collecting measurements to help scientists better understand changes in the massive ice sheet.

This autonomous, solar-powered robot carries a ground-penetrating radar to study how snow accumulates, adding layer upon layer to the ice sheet over time.

Greenland's surface layer vaulted into the news in summer 2012 when higher than normal temperatures caused surface melting across about 97 percent of the ice sheet.

Scientists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., expect GROVER to detect the layer of the ice sheet that formed in the aftermath of that extreme melt event.

Research with polar rovers costs less than aircraft or satellites, the usual platforms.

Lora Koenig

"Robots like GROVER will give us a new tool for glaciology studies," said Lora Koenig, a glaciologist at Goddard and science advisor on the project.

GROVER will be joined on the ice sheet in June by another robot, named Cool Robot, developed at Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H., with funding from the National Science Foundation.

This rover can tow a variety of instrument packages to conduct glaciological and atmospheric sampling studies.

GROVER was developed in 2010 and 2011 by teams of students participating in summer engineering boot camps at Goddard.

The students were interested in building a rover and approached Koenig about whether a rover could aid her studies of snow accumulation on ice sheets.

This information typically is gathered by radars carried on snowmobiles and airplanes. Koenig suggested putting a radar on a rover for this work.

Hans-Peter Marshall

Koenig, now a science advisor on the GROVER Project, asked Hans-Peter Marshall, a glaciologist at Boise State University to bring in his expertise in small, low-power, autonomous radars that could be mounted on GROVER.

Since its inception at the boot camp, GROVER has been fine-tuned, with NASA funding, at Boise State.

Huge Iceberg, Twice The Size Of Manhattan, Breaks Off Petermann Glacier In Greenland

An iceberg twice the size of Manhattan has reportedly broken free of one of Greenland's largest glaciers.

Scientists are reporting the separation to be an indication of another dramatic change to the warming island.

According to the Associated Press, scientists had been keeping a close eye on a specific "long crack" near the tip of the northerly Petermann Glacier. Concerns were eventually raised to a higher level on Monday, July 16, after the 46 square mile iceberg completely separated from the glacier.

University of Delaware professor Andreas Muenchow was one of the first researchers to notice the break.

"It's dramatic. It's disturbing . . . we have data for 150 years and we see changes that we have not seen before," Muenchow told AP. "It's one of the manifestations that Greenland is changing very fast."

In a development that does not seem to come off as a coincidence, AP also notes that the same glacier spawned an iceberg twice that size two years ago.

Those paying close attention to the issue suspect global warming to be the reason for the break, but have yet to be able to come up with conclusive evidence.

And while Glaciers do give way to icebergs naturally, scientists are looking at the rapid rate of break-offs from Petermann as unprecedented.

"This is not part of natural variations anymore," NASA glaciologist Eric Rignot, who camped on Petermann 10 years ago, told the AP.

Ohio State University ice scientist Ian Howat has said that "If it continues, and more of the Petermann is lost, the melting would push up sea levels."
The new huge iceberg is likely to follow the path of the one in 2010, which broke apart into smaller icebergs headed north, then west and last year started landing in Newfoundland according to Muenchow.