Mike Flugennock wrote:


Still, this raises the question: should our designers be thinking in
terms of the "traditional" surface-landing/sampling planetary probe,
or perhaps a hybrid submersible?

The trick is getting the data from the probe back up through the ice; a
really ambitious project would send down an autonomously running
submarine probe with the radio isotope power supply/ice melter on the
nose, let it swim around down there for a week or two, then have it drop
ballast and melt it's way back up again to the surface- where it deploys
an antennae and transmits its data back. This approach alleviates the
possibly shifting ice damaging the fiber optic cable problem.
Something that can accomplish this is probably going to be very heavy to
launch, and this may be a good one to assemble in Earth orbit at the ISS
from component parts and rocket boosters.

Pat