NASA to create 'Shapeshifter' robots to explore Saturn's moon- Titan

After declaring their plan to settle on the moon, colonize Mars, NASA has now turned its sight to the ringed planet - Saturn. NASA shared on Thursday that a team in its Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California is testing a 3-D-printed prototype of the 'Shapeshifter' robot. The 'Shapeshifter' is a machine which can roll, fly, float, and swim states NASA. The space agency aims to use this transformational vehicle to explore Saturn and its moons.

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What is 'Shapeshifter'?

According to NASA, the 3D printed model prototype looks like drone encased in an elongated hamster wheel rolls across the yard, then splits in half. On separating, the two halves of the contraption rise on small propellers, effectively becoming flying drones for aerial exploration, says NASA. The team developing the 'Shapeshifter' reportedly aims at producing 12 robots that could transform into a swimming probe or a team of cave explorers. 'Shapeshifter' is a part of NASA's research program called NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC).

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What will 'Shapeshifter' do?

JPL Principal Investigator Ali Agha reportedly aims at sending 'Shapeshifter' as a mission to Saturn's moon Titan. Previously, NASA's Cassini mission flew by Titan over one hundred times, mapping its surface for future missions. As shared by Cassini, Titan is the only other world in the solar system known to have liquid in the form of methane lakes, rivers and seas on its surface. Agha aims to send 'Shapeshifter' to study the composition of the various surfaces on Titan - Rocky terrain, methane lakes, cryovolcanoes.

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What is the future scope of 'Shapeshifter'?

NASA states that Agha's future plan includes a lander like the European Space Agency's Huygens Probe, which touched down on Titan after being deployed via parachute by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Agha and his team have reportedly teamed up with researchers from Stanford and Cornell universities and come up with a self-assembling robot made of smaller robots called "cobots" - would be able to move independently of one another to fly, roll, swim and float on any terrain. Agha plans to send these cobots onboard his 'mothercraft' to perform in-depth sample analysis on the surface. Agha calculates that 10 cobots could easily lift a lander the size of Huygens and gently carry it to different locations.  

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