Search for Life Helps the Search for Oil

Subheadline

NASA’s search for life signs on Mars is a boon for oil and gas production on Earth

Whether exploring the depths of the universe or the depths of our own planet, scientists often turn to spectroscopy — a method of determining what things are made of using varieties of light. Depending on the wavelengths a sample absorbs or reflects, it can indicate which elements or chemicals are present. For NASA, it’s a key tool for making discoveries in space, particularly in seeking evidence of extraterrestrial life.

As a contractor at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, Pablo Sobron works on the SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals) instrument on the Perseverance rover currently exploring Mars. SHERLOC uses an ultraviolet laser to determine the makeup of surface materials and see whether any have signs of ancient life. Making tools capable enough to perform this research on Earth is difficult enough, but constructing one that can do everything off-world is even more challenging.

“As we’re searching for life out there, we’re looking at trace amounts of amino acids, proteins, or DNA, if we’re very lucky,” Sobron said. “We’re looking at parts per billion or per trillion sometimes, which is really something that today you can only do with a few instruments around the world. We have to figure out how to put that on a robot on another planet.”

While working on SHERLOC and other spaceflight projects, Sobron founded St. Louis-based Impossible Sensing LLC in 2016 to continue improving spectroscopy tools. The company has had multiple Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) projects with the space agency, notably at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California, regarding development of similar sensors. One, known as PERISCOPE (Probe for Exploring Regolith and Ice by Subsurface Classification of Organics, PAHs, and Elements) was developed over multiple contracts into an even more sensitive method to measure traces of organic elements.

In 2019, Sobron met Ariel Torre, a veteran engineer who saw a new market for the technology Impossible Sensing was developing — oil exploration.  When extracting oil, two substances usually come out along with it: natural gas and water. Typically, well output is measured by pumping all three into a tank and waiting for them to separate, then measuring each one individually. The company’s multi-phase flow meters, on the other hand, can be placed right at the wellhead and use spectroscopy to determine the makeup of the mixture while it’s being extracted. Torre said that by using these NASA-derived sensors, monitoring could be done in real time and at one-tenth of the cost of comparable $250,000 sensors. And with the remote nature of many oil wells, the sensor’s engineering for longevity and reliability is a bonus.

“There are a lot of parallels to design requirements that, for NASA, are a given,” said Torre. “When you build something to go to Mars, it’s designed to just work. It’s designed so that no one has to fix it because no one can. The oil and gas industry aspires to that level of design and reliability.”

In 2021, Impossible Sensing spun off a Canadian company called Impossible Sensing Energy, based in Calgary, Alberta, to market its spectroscopic sensors to oil and gas companies. Marketed under the brand name Flow, the devices’ initial sales were to companies operating in Canada. The oil producer Veren has purchased 20 units, and a second producer, Tundra Oil & Gas, has also placed an order, while several other companies are currently testing Impossible sensors at their own well sites.