A team of engineers at Planet Enterprises — a Washington-based space technology incubator — is developing so-called Borebots for the exploration of Mars.

Expected to be capable of drilling to depths of roughly 50 m, the Planet Enterprises team believes the Borebots will help researchers better understand locations including Mars' south pole to determine the potential for life there, for instance.

Source: NIAC

To make this possible, the Borebots, can reportedly operate without tethers. Instead, the compact bots are enveloped in a 64 mm by 1.1 m long cylinder that resembles drilling tube segments. These self-contained components reportedly feature a battery, a drill bit, a motor and an electronic system.

Possibly activated by a space rover’s deployment tube, a fleet of Borebots could be dispatched at the surface of Mars for drilling and digging through regolith. Once the Borebot’s energy diminishes, the researchers envision that it would travel back up the hole it has dug, re-enter the deployment tube to return to the rover for recharging and cleaning while another Borebot takes its place.

The Borebots are detailed in the article “Borebots: Tetherless Deep Drilling into the Mars South Polar Layered Deposits,” which was published in NIAC.