NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory · legged machine
EELS
Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor
A 4.4 m, 100 kg segmented snake robot (EELS 1.0) with lidar and stereo cameras and software to move without real-time human input.
- Price
- —Not published
- Height
- —Not published
- Weight
- 100 kgHeavier than 56%
- Payload
- —Not published
- Speed
- —Not published
- Battery
- —Not published
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Why it matters
A self-propelled snake robot driven by rotating screws, conceived to descend vents in the icy crust of Saturn's moon Enceladus.
Real-world use
Field-tested on an ice rink, a ski resort, JPL's Mars Yard and Athabasca Glacier, Canada (2022-2023).
Maker
NASA Jet Propulsion LaboratoryGovernment lab · Pasadena, California, USANASA; DARPA (RoboSimian)
How it stacks up
Against other legged & novel that publish the figure. Pick a measure.
EELS (Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor) is heavier than 56% of the 25 other legged & novel that publish a weight. Bars show the 7 closest in date.
Not published by the maker: height, speed, payload, joints, battery, price.
Public attention
How much public attention EELS (Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor) gets, from open data.
- No Wikipedia article of its own yet
- 3 news stories from reputable press listed on this page
Measures how much people read and write about a robot, not how good it is. Measured 2026-10-14; same method for every robot. How it is measured
What’s inside
The parts the company has talked about publicly.
- Movement
- Other movement
- How it runs
- Supervised. In field tests it moved through ice and terrain using its own perception and planning while the JPL team monitored and could step in.
- Actuators & motors
- Segments with independently actuated counter-rotating screws for traction on ice, snow and sand; screws act as propellers underwater
- Sensors & vision
- Lidar and four stereo camera pairs in the head
- Battery & power
- Tethered for power and communications (version 1.0)
- AI & software
- Risk-aware autonomy that picks paths and makes safety decisions without real-time human input
- Other details
- About 4-4.4 m long and 100 kg (10 segments); science segment can carry a prototype capillary electrophoresis instrument
Lineage
Every NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory machine in order.
Watch EELS (Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor)
Made, sold and where
Unit counts are usually company figures; analysts often disagree.
- Price
- Not published
- How to get one
- No official buying page found
- Built
- Prototypes (versions 1.0 and 1.5)
- Sold or delivered
- not sold
- Where it is sold or used
- NASA JPL, Pasadena, United States
News
The latest 3, newest first. Summaries are ours; tap through for the original.
- EELS tested on Athabasca Glacier
JPL took the 4.4 m snake robot to Alberta's Athabasca Glacier in September 2023 to test it in ice shafts.
The Rocky Mountain Goat - JPL trains snake robot for rough terrain
Interesting Engineering covered EELS tests aimed at icy moons such as Enceladus.
Interesting Engineering - EELS put to the test at JPL
JPL described its startup-style build-and-test approach for the autonomous snake robot.
SolarDaily (JPL release)
Sources
Figures come from the maker. Every link below backs something on this page.
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