ENDURANCE

ENDURANCE (Environmentally Non-Disturbing Under-ice Robotic Antarctic Explorer) is an autonomous underwater vehicle designed to map in three dimensions the geochemistry and biology of underwater terrains in Antarctica. The vehicle was built and designed by Stone Aerospace, and is the second incarnation of the DEPTHX vehicle, which was significantly reconfigured for the challenges particular to the Antarctic environment.

For other uses, see Endurance (disambiguation).

The principal investigator for the ENDURANCE project was Earth and environmental scientist Peter Doran of the University of Illinois at Chicago. Bill Stone, CEO of Stone Aerospace, was a co-investigator, along with John Priscu of Montana State University, and Chris McKay of NASA Ames Research Center. The project was funded by the NASA Astrobiology Science and Technology for Exploring Planets program as well as by the National Science Foundation's United States Antarctic Program.

The name of ENDURANCE is a backronym in tribute to Ernest Shackleton's Antarctic exploration ship Endurance.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.