Titan is unique in the outer solar system in that it is the only one of the bodies outside the Earth with liquid lakes and seas on its surface. The Titanian seas, however, are not composed of water, like Earth’s seas, but are seas of liquid hydrocarbons. What lies beneath the surface of Titan’s seas? We propose to develop a conceptual design of a submersible autonomous vehicle (submarine) to explore extraterrestrial seas. Specifically, to send a submarine to Titan’s largest northern sea, Kraken Mare. This craft will autonomously carry out detailed scientific investigations under the surface of Kraken Mare, providing unprecedented knowledge of an extraterrestrial sea and expanding NASA’s existing capabilities in planetary exploration to include in situ nautical operations. Sprawling over some 1000 km, with depths estimated at 300 m, Kraken Mare is comparable in size to the Great Lakes and represents an opportunity for an unprecedented planetary exploration mission.
Published on Feb 3, 2015
What would a submarine to explore the liquid methane seas of Saturn's Moon Titan look like? This video shows one submarine concept that would explore both the shoreline and the depths of this strange world that has methane rain, rivers and seas! The design was developed for the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Program, by NASA Glenn's COMPASS Team, and technologists and scientists from the Applied Physics Lab and submarine designers from the Applied Research Lab. [music only - no narration]
Human exploration of planets and moons in the solar system has thus far taken place on dry land,
thanks largely to the lack of liquid water on most celestial bodies. The NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program has developed a concept for a robotic submersible vehicle for planetary exploration, but it won’t be deployed in water. The aptly (though unimaginatively) named Titan Submarine Phase I Conceptual Design could some day go for a dip in the hydrocarbon lakes of Saturn’s moon Titan.
Titan has always been an interesting target for study because it’s so unusual for a moon. It’s larger than Mercury and has an atmosphere one-and-a-half times as dense as Earth’s. The atmosphere is mostly nitrogen and methane with hints of hydrogen, so certainly nothing that would support life as we know it. Titan’s temperature can reach a positively frigid -179 degrees Celsius (-290 degrees Fahrenheit). These super-low temperatures and thick atmosphere combine to create the feature scientists are so anxious to study in detail — vast lakes and rivers of liquid methane and ethane.
Data from the Voyager, Cassini, and Huygens (deployed by Cassini) probes have confirmed that there are three large polar seas on Titan’s surface, and the largest of them is known as Kraken Mare. This is the target for NASA’s Titan submarine as it would provide the most opportunities for exploration.
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