The ability to change shape hasn’t saved a robot probe from getting stuck inside a crippled Japanese nuclear reactor.

Tokyo Electric Power will likely leave the probe inside the reactor housing at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex north of Tokyo after it stopped moving.

On Friday, the utility sent a robot for the first time into the primary containment vessel (PCV) of reactor No. 1 at the plant, which was heavily damaged by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in northern Japan.

The pipe-crawling, snake-like robot, which can transform itself into several configurations depending on the terrain, was deployed to determine the state and location of melted-down fuel in the reactor. The move was part of efforts to extract the highly radioactive fuel and decommission the plant, a costly undertaking that will take decades.

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