DepthX Robot Scours Sinkholes

A completely untethered, autonomous underwater diving robot launches a mission this week to collect samples from a 400-foot-deep geothermal sinkhole in Mexico.

In a departure from other submersibles that manuever by commands received from the mother ship, this robot will be on its own from time it dives into the water until it returns to the surface. Using onboard mapping intelligence, the robot will navigate the La Pilita sinkhole, which leads to a network of flooded caves. Scientists behind the NASA-funded DepthX, (for Deep Phreatic Thermal eXplorer) hope the vehicle, which measures 8 feet in diameter and weighs 2,860 pounds, will collect samples of organisms that can survive the sinkhole's extreme environment.

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