Event
Swarm Prospecting Beacons: Valhalla Field Trial
The Swarm Prospecting Beacons are still a prototype, and this is their biggest test so far. Four packs of 64 beacons, 256 in all, will be scattered across the cold traps of Callisto's Valhalla basin to map helium-3 outgassing over a 300-kilometre mesh.
Toolworks Director Hester Mbeki introduces the design: thin-film solar skins with betavoltaic backup, drawing under a kilowatt for a whole pack, each beacon talking to its neighbours rather than to a base station. Helium-3 prospector Paulo Teixeira then explains what he hopes the swarm will find, and how its readings will feed the Jovian Volatiles Census.
Deployment runs from the hold of a Nimbus Gas Skimmer making a low pass over the basin. Guests at Valhalla Station watch the scatter live; everyone else can follow the beacon map as it lights up on the Guild forge.