The Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor (EELS) is a snake-like robot designed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to traverse extreme terrain of crevasse vents on the ice moon of Enceladus. These vents lead directly to a liquid water ocean beneath the icy crust, which is considered one of the most likely places to find life in our solar system.

The goal: Support NASA JPL’s search for life on Enceladus by designing a sterile sampling system for EELS.

The solution: To solve the "Planetary Protection" challenge of preventing Earth microbes from causing false positives, our team leaned into interdisciplinary collaboration. A teammate with a biomedical background proposed a peristaltic pump solution:

• Sterility: Using medical-grade tubing created a closed-loop system where the sample never touches mechanical parts

• Integration: We engineered a compact, lightweight housing to fit within the robot’s modular cylindrical frame

• Validation: Proved the concept by successfully transporting precise fluid volumes without environmental leaks

Key insight: This project reinforced that the most elegant solutions often exist at the intersection of unrelated fields. I likely wouldn't have considered a medical pump for a space mission on my own. The best work happens in multidisciplinary teams.

You can read more about the EELS robot on JPL’s website!