Space exploration and volcano research may share technology in coming years if Pacific Northwest scientists develop reliable remote sensors which can communicate with each other and with satellites without human input.

Mt St Helens Natl Park

A plume of ash rises up from Mt. St. Helens following the collapse of a lava dome .

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has given a $1.6 million grant to the Cascades Volcano Observatory and Washington State University to develop what amounts to low-powered WiFi for seismic and GPS sensors far from the nearest internet connection.

Ground zero for the research will be an area often compared to a "moonscape."

  Watch the KGW report

 Raw: New Sky 8 video inside the crater

Scientists plan to deploy two more instrument packs this week in the crater of Mount St. Helens. A helicopter will drop "spiders" full of GPS sensors and power packs directly onto the new dome growing in the crater. Batteries in the boxes can last up to a year, even in the freezing winter cold of the mountain or the 1000 degree heat of the volcano's new dome.

The goal is to devise a way for those instruments to connect with each other and even trigger satellite surveillance.

Rick LaHusen, a U.S.G.S. hydrologist said, "the satellite and the network on the ground can both communicate interactively by themselves without any human intervention."

With official plans to put a base on the moon and to land humans on Mars, NASA is interested LaHusen said, because the same technology "can be used on an interplanetary exploration or on lunar explorations."

The dome has changed dramatically since last fall. No longer does it sport a jagged sharp fin of rock. Instead, the dome has spread out in a massive formation that dwarfs the old dome which grew in the 1980's.

"It's more like a mushroom, growing up and expanding and spreading. So we have a nice platform or plateau on top" on which to set their instruments, LaHusen said.

Without sensors on the dome itself, scientists have trouble detecting how much it is growing.

Infrared readings show that a waistband of hot rock that used to ring the base of the growing dome is no longer hot. That may mean extrusion of new rock from underground has slowed or stopped. Or, it could mean the motion is now more active inside the dome, not at its edge.

"Is it growing internally or is it actually slowing down now?" LaHusen muses. "We need to get those measurements on top more precisely to tell."

At least three cameras sit, unusable, on the crater's rim encased in thick ice. They won't function again until the weather warms.

But the new instruments going in this week will go in directly on the dome itself, where it's too warm for ice to gather.