Unfrozen assets

The dark side of the moon, the deepest lunar craters and Jupiter’s satellite, Europa, are so cold that even robots may refuse to work there.

This presents a significant hurdle because it’s in these places where valuable resources may lie, in the form of ice. With the temperature as low as 43K (-230ºC), only rovers whose circuits are made of special materials that allow electrons to flow will keep moving.

So integrated circuits capable of withstanding extreme cold have to be designed if robotic rovers are to pave the way for the expected resumption of manned exploration.

The problem is that standard silicon circuitry effectively freezes when the temperature plunges and the electrons stop flowing. Silicon doped with germanium is a potential answer because laboratory experiments have shown it can still function right down to 5K.

But that’s in the lab — NASA would not risk wrecking a multi-million dollar high-profile mission by assuming the same material will behave identically in space. The fall-out from such a failure would make Beagle 2 seem successful by comparison.