WHILE SEARCHING FOR LIFE....

MARS MOUNTAINEER

When searching for life on a distant planet, it pays to make sure that any biologically derived molecules you find didn’t catch a ride from Earth on the spaceship. Avoiding “forward contamination” takes elbow grease, and the right mix of chemicals, before a mission even launches. To test NASA’s sterilization protocol, scientists set off for the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard with Cliffbot, a next-generation rover (shown here). There, they perfected a seven-step procedure involving distilled water, hydrogen peroxide and chemical swabs, making sure to scrub every one of Cliffbot’s ­scoopers. The regimen worked, removing one more obstacle before cadres of squeaky-clean robots can further humanity’s search for microbial company on Mars and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn.

Mars Mountaineer

Arctic Outdoor Lab: Scientists use Norway’s far northern Svalbard islands to test gear-sterilization techniques and space-bound rovers such as this prototype.

Social Climber: Cliffbot is part of a three-rover team. Two other robots are tethered to the machine to let it access terrain as steep as 85 degrees.

Bot Specs: The rover is the size of a toy wagon, weighs nearly 18 pounds and creeps at 6 inches a second on level ground.