Robot probes sent in to study Japan's Fukushima site keep failing during their recon missions. The radiation levels at the site are so high that previous clean-up bots have struggled to withstand conditions within the reactor for long. Now the head of decommissioning for the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant said on Thursday that the company's robots were not able to get close enough to the core area. Robot probes sent in to study Japan's Fukushima site keep failing during their recon missions. This image shows a photograph taken by a probe sent into Fukushima's No. 2 reactor Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), the company that owns the Fukushima plant, took radiation readings using a robot probe.

The head of decommissioning for the damaged Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant said Thursday that more creativity is needed in developing robots to locate and assess the condition of melted fuel rods. A robot sent inside the reactor 2 containment vessel last month could not reach as close to the core area as was hoped for because it was blocked by deposits, believed to be a mixture of melted fuel and broken pieces of structures inside. Naohiro Masuda, who heads the decommissioning unit of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc., said he wants another probe sent in before deciding on methods to remove the reactor's debris. Reactor 2 is one of the Fukushima reactors that melted down following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Tepco needs to know the melted fuel's exact location as well as structural damage in each of the three wrecked reactors to figure out the best and safest ways to remove the fuel.

The second robot Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) sent into Fukushima's unit 2 reactor also failed to finish its mission. Now, it's the machine's left crawler belt that stopped working (PDF) altogether, forcing TEPCO to cut off its tether and to leave it inside. Toshiba designed these scorpions specifically to examine Unit 2's condition and to locate the melted uranium fuel within. The information would help Tepco figure out the best and safest way to clean the fuel up. The power company still isn't sure whether the robot's crawler belt stopped working due to the radiation levels inside or due to all the debris the first machine wasn't able to clear.

Radiation levels inside a stricken reactor at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant have hit a record high. Levels are now so high that they could kill off robots sent in to probe the reactors. The development casts doubt over how the disaster-hit facility will be safely dismantled in the future. Radiation levels inside a stricken reactor at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant have hit a record high. Levels are so high that they could kill off robots sent in to probe the reactors.