GROVER Undertakes First Trip On Greenland's Ice Sheet (Picture)

With the start of the polar summer, NASA's new Greenland rover -- GROVER -- can be seen on its first test trip on the ice sheet this week, as planned.

The autonomous robot, solar-powered by the two distinctive standard photovoltaic panels, carries a ground-penetrating radar to study how snow accumulates over the years as layer upon layer is added to the ice sheet.

The GROVER team, led by glaciologist Lora Koenig from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., arrived in Summit Camp, the highest spot in Greenland, on May 6, 2013. After loading and testing the rover’s radar and fixing a minor communications glitch, the team began the robot’s tests on the ice on May 8, defying winds of up to 23 mph (37 kph) and temperatures as low as minus 22 F (minus 30 C).

The GROVER tests will continue through June 8. GROVER, a prototype, was first developed in 2010 and 2011 during summer engineering boot camps at Goddard, before further refinement, with NASA funding, at Boise State University. Its trial in Greenland will also serve as a test of using rovers in harsh polar regions to gather data.

Image Credit: Lora Koenig / NASA Goddard