Elon Musk’s SpaceX is about to launch NASA’s groundbreaking Dragonfly mission to Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, with the help of a Falcon Heavy rocket.
As per reports, the rocket will take off between July 5 and 25, 2028, from Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, the launch contract is valued at $256.6 million.
The Dragonfly mission is a part of NASA’s New Frontiers Programme. It aims to explore Titan’s unique environment with a drone-like rotorcraft lander.
Dragonfly will travel to Titan over six years, arriving in 2034. It will explore Titan’s methane seas, icy landscapes and organic-rich dunes, landing in a new location every Titan day (16 Earth days).
The rotorcraft will collect samples and analyse Titan’s prebiotic chemistry, searching for biosignatures of life, whether water-based or hydrocarbon-based.
It has been learnt that Titan is the only known celestial body besides Earth with stable surface liquids, that presents a unique opportunity to study environments that may support life.
Reports suggest that the launch was slated for 2026 launch. However, the mission got delayed owing to the pandemic
NASA decided to shorten the cruise phase and meet the 2034 arrival target.
While Titan’s dense atmosphere and low gravity make it ideal for rotorcraft flight, the moon’s surface receives only 1 per cent of the sunlight that Earth does.
This leads to solar-powered operations, which Dragonfly will tackle using advanced autonomous systems, drawing lessons from the Mars Helicopter, Ingenuity.
Dragonfly follows the footsteps of Cassini-Huygens mission, which provided humanity’s first close-up look at Titan in 2005.
Dragonfly will, reportedly, expand on the discoveries by exploring Titan’s active methane cycle and studying how water and carbon-rich materials may have interacted to create prebiotic conditions.
The mission is managed by NASA’s Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. But contributions from experts worldwide will be used in planetary science, rotorcraft design and autonomous systems.
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