Achi news desk-
NASA has confirmed that its exciting Dragonfly mission, which will fly drone-like craft around Saturn’s largest moon Titan, will cost $3.35 billion and launch in July 2028.
Titan is the only other world in the solar system besides Earth that has weather and liquid on the surface. It has an atmosphere, rain, lakes, oceans, shorelines, valleys, mountain ridges, mesas and dunes – and possibly the building blocks of life itself. It has been described as utopia and as vague due to its strange chemistry.
Set to reach Titan in 2034, Dragonfly’s mission will last for two years once its lander reaches the surface. During the mission, a rotorcraft will fly to a new location on Titan every day (16 Earth days) to take samples of the giant moon’s prebiotic chemistry. Here’s what else it will do:
- Search for chemical biosignatures, past and present, from aquatic life to life that could use liquid hydrocarbons.
- Investigating the moon’s active methane cycle.
- Explore the prebiotic chemistry in the atmosphere and on the surface.
A wonderful mission
“Dragonfly is a spectacular science mission with broad community interest, and we are excited to take the next steps on this mission,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Exploring Titan will push the boundaries of what we can do with rotorcraft outside of Earth.”
It follows the Mars Helicopter, nicknamed Ingenuity, which flew 72 times between April 2021 and its final flight in January 2023 although it is only expected to make up to five experimental test flights over 30 days. He has just done his last downlink of data this week.
Thick Atmosphere
However, Titan is a completely different environment to Mars. Titan has a thick atmosphere on Titan, which will make buoyancy simple. The gravity on Titan is only 14% that of Earth. It sees only 1% of the sunlight received by Earth.
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The atmosphere is 98% nitrogen and 2% methane. Its seas and lakes are not water but liquid ethane and methane. The latter is a gas in Titan’s atmosphere, but on its surface, it exists as a liquid in rain, snow, lakes, and ice on its surface.
Affected by COVID
Dragonfly was a victim of the pandemic. Slated to cost $1 billion when selected in 2019, it was scheduled to launch in 2026 and arrive in 2034 after an eight-year cruise period. However, after a delay due to COVID, NASA decided to make up for the inevitable launch delay by funding a heavy lift launch vehicle to drastically shorten the cruise period of the mission.
The end result is that Dragonfly starts two years later but arrives on time.
Previous Visit
Dragonfly won’t be the first time a robotic probe has visited Titan. As part of NASA’s landmark Cassini mission to Saturn between 2004 and 2017, a small probe called Huygens was sent into Titan’s clouds on January 14, 2005. The resulting time-lapse footage of its 2.5-hour descent – which announced’ mankind’s first ever (and only) views of Titan’s surface – it’s a must-see for space fans. He landed in an area of ​​round blocks of ice, but on the way down, he saw ancient dry shorelines reminiscent of Earth as well as rivers of methane.
NASA’s announcement makes July 2028 a month worth checking out for space fans, with a long-term total solar eclipse set for July 22, 2028, in Australia and New Zealand.
Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.
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