For other uses, see Endurance (disambiguation)

Endurance (disambiguation)

Endurance is the act of sustaining prolonged stressful effort.Endurance may also refer to one of the following:Entertainment*Endurance , an American Survivor-style reality TV show for teens...

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The Environmentally Non-Disturbing Under-ice Robotic Antarctic Explorer, (ENDURANCE) is a submersible autonomous underwater vehicle

Autonomous Underwater Vehicle

An autonomous underwater vehicle is a robot which travels underwater without requiring input from an operator. AUVs constitute part of a larger group of undersea systems known as unmanned underwater vehicles, a classification that includes non-autonomous remotely operated underwater vehicles...

 designed to map in three dimensions the geochemistry

Geochemistry

The field of geochemistry involves study of the chemical composition of the Earth and other planets, chemical processes and reactions that govern the composition of rocks, water, and soils, and the cycles of matter and energy that transport the Earth's chemical components in time and space, and...

 and biology

Biology

Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...

 of underwater terrains in Antarctica. The ENDURANCE craft is actually the same as the DEPTHX

DEPTHX

The Deep Phreatic Thermal Explorer is an autonomous underwater vehicle, designed to explore deep underwater caves. It is purported to be the most advanced robotic vehicle of its kind on Earth. Its primary function is observation, with an array of sonar sensors all around its flattened spheroid hull...

 vehicle, but reconfigured.

The name of ENDURANCE is a backronym

Backronym

A backronym or bacronym is a phrase constructed purposely, such that an acronym can be formed to a specific desired word. Backronyms may be invented with serious or humorous intent, or may be a type of false or folk etymology....

 in tribute to Ernest Shackleton

Ernest Shackleton

Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, CVO, OBE was a notable explorer from County Kildare, Ireland, who was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration...

's Antarctic exploration ship Endurance

Endurance (1912 ship)

The Endurance was the three-masted barquentine in which Sir Ernest Shackleton sailed for the Antarctic on the 1914 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition...

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Lake Bonney

The craft is currently undergoing testing in Lake Bonney (Antarctica)

Lake Bonney (Antarctica)

Lake Bonney is a saline lake with permanent ice cover at the western end of Taylor Valley in the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Victoria Land, Antarctica.It is long and up to wide...

. The lead investigator is University of Illinois at Chicago

University of Illinois at Chicago

The University of Illinois at Chicago, or UIC, is a state-funded public research university located in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its campus is in the Near West Side community area, near the Chicago Loop...

 Associate Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences Peter Doran

Peter Doran

Peter Doran, Ph.D. is Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago.Doran specializes in polar regions, especially Antarctic climate and ecosystems. Doran was the lead author of a research paper about Antarctic temperatures that was published in the journal...

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Lake Vostok

Upon successful completion of testing at Lake Bonney, more tests are planned at Lake Vostok

Lake Vostok

Lake Vostok is the largest of more than 140 subglacial lakes found under the surface of Antarctica. The overlying ice provides a continuous paleoclimatic record of 400,000 years, although the lake water itself may have been isolated for 15 to 25 million years. The lake is named after the...

, where a cryobot

Cryobot

A cryobot or Philberth-probe is a robot designed to operate in or around water ice.-Features and technology:The cryobot is a surface-controlled, nonrecoverable instrumented vehicle that can penetrate polar ice sheets down to 3600 meters by melting. It can be used to measure temperature, stress, ice...

 will be needed to melt several kilometers of ice before ENDURANCE may reach the non-frozen surface of the lake.

Europa (moon)

NASA

NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

 hopes to build upon lessons learned during testing for exploring objects in our solar system

Solar System

The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...

 known to harbor sizable bodies of water, such as Europa

Europa (moon)

Europa Slightly smaller than Earth's Moon, Europa is primarily made of silicate rock and probably has an iron core. It has a tenuous atmosphere composed primarily of oxygen. Its surface is composed of ice and is one of the smoothest in the Solar System. This surface is striated by cracks and...

. ENDURANCE is anticipated to be a prototype of a submersible vehicle later to become integrated into the Europa Jupiter System Mission

Europa Jupiter System Mission

The Europa Jupiter System Mission – Laplace was a proposed joint NASA/ESA unmanned space mission slated to launch around 2020 for the in-depth exploration of Jupiter's moons with a focus on Europa, Ganymede and Jupiter's magnetosphere...

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