NASA’s ambitious Dragonfly mission - a nuclear-powered rotorcraft destined for Saturn’s largest moon, Titan - has just cleared a major hurdle.
The mission passed NASA's Critical Design Review, a key milestone that confirms the mission's hardware and software are ready for final assembly and integration.
This puts Dragonfly on track for its 2028 launch; that's one small step for one, one big-ass leap for finding signs of life.
What is the Dragonfly?
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The Dragonfly project is part of NASA’s New Frontiers program, with a staggering price tag of $3.35 billion (£2,507,775,977.)
The nuclear helicopter's main goal is to explore Titan’s surface and atmosphere, seeking clues about how life might originate and survive in extreme conditions.
Unlike other planetary missions, Dragonfly will not be a stationary lander or a traditional rover. Instead, it will be a flying laboratory, powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator, capable of hopping across Titan's vast and diverse terrain.
The drone will be equipped with eight rotors and designed to fly in Titan’s thick atmosphere, which is denser than Earth’s. That makes flight easier despite the moon’s low gravity.
With the ability to travel about eight miles per flight, Dragonfly will gradually cover over 100 miles during its planned 2.7-year mission. For comparison, that's more than double the distance travelled by all the Mars rovers combined.
Why Titan matters
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Titan, which is larger than the planet Mercury, has a thick atmosphere and surface lakes of liquid methane and ethane. Its environment is rich in organic molecules, making it one of the most Earth-like and potentially habitable places beyond our planet.
Dragonfly will explore multiple locations on Titan, collecting samples and analysing their chemical makeup. It will look for signs of complex organic chemistry and prebiotic conditions that could hint at past or even present signs of life.
Dragonfly's principal investigator Elizabeth Turtle stated “After years of design and testing, we are excited to start building Dragonfly itself and prepare for its game-changing voyage of exploration across an intriguing, mysterious ocean world.”
The spacecraft is planned to land in a region called Shangri-La, a dune-filled area similar to the deserts seen on the hit movie, Dune. From there, it will fly to various scientifically interesting sites, including an impact crater called Selk, believed to contain water ice and, as well as organic materials.
If nothing else, the data collected from the mission to Titan could help to provide insight into the building blocks of life, making it one of the most exciting and important missions in recent history.
Kegan Mooney