Dragonfly, a drone flying in the atmosphere of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, will arrive there in 2034. (A fantasy picture: NASA / Johns Hopkins APL / Steve Gribben)
After a favorable decision, design, construction and final testing of the mission can begin. The Dragonfly (Hungarian: dragonfly) probe, the size of a car, i.e. similar to the Curiosity probe on Mars, was launched by the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University (Laurel, Maryland) (JHU APL, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory) to build. If the launch date is not postponed, the probe will reach Titan in 2034. The nuclear-powered drone is then expected to fly to a new location once every Titan day (equivalent to 16 Earth days) for 2.5 years and study the prebiotic chemical processes at each landing site on the moon, which also contains organic matter.
Flight tests were carried out with the Dragonfly model in California, in an area similar to the dunes of Titan. (Source: YouTube, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory)
As we know, Titan is the only moon in the solar system that has a dense atmosphere, and on its surface there are lakes and oceans made of liquid material (hydrocarbons). Titan has long been the focus of planetary scientists’ interest because it is believed that the conditions on its surface may be similar to those on Earth, which once had a methane-rich atmosphere when life arose. The possible presence of hydrocarbon rivers and life-sustaining organic matter raises the question of Titan’s habitability, a major focus of Dragonfly’s investigations.
A 1:2 scale down Dragonfly was used for aerodynamic tests in a 4.3 by 6.7 meter (14 by 22 ft) wind tunnel at NASA’s Langley Research Center. (Source: YouTube, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory)
Dragonfly’s launch was previously planned for 2027, but due to uncertainty in this year’s and next year’s budgets, NASA deemed it appropriate to postpone the planned date . At the beginning of March, the government presented NASA’s budget plan for 2025, in which 2.73 billion dollars are earmarked for the exploration of the solar system with robots, part of which can be used for the development of Dragonfly, which has the requirements estimated cost for the duration of the solar system. The mission, according to NASA’s previous announcement, is 3.35 billion dollars. The latter figure is (much) higher than Dragonfly’s original budget, as the mission was originally commissioned by NASA within the framework of the New Frontiers program was selected for implementation, but in this program the missions had to be designed within the budget ceiling of 1 billion dollars. (The New Frontiers series includes NASA’s medium-sized and low-budget missions, the first three missions were New Horizons, Juno and OSIRIS-REx, the fourth is Dragonfly.)
Dragonfly on the surface of Titan. (A fantasy picture: NASA / Johns Hopkins APL / Steve Gribben)
Although it will be another ten years before Dragonfly begins operating in Titan’s atmosphere and surface, many of the probe subsystems have already been tested on Earth, including the guidance and navigation systems. In July 2022, flight tests of the same drone as Dragonfly were conducted over a landscape similar to the surface of Titan in California, and wind tunnel tests were conducted with the device at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia.
Dragonfly developers with a scaled-down 1:2 version of the probe in a wind tunnel at NASA’s Langley Research Center. (Picture: Johns Hopkins APL / Ed Whitman)
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Affiliate links:
NASA greenlights 2028 launch for massive Dragonfly mission to Saturn’s giant moon Titan (space.com)
NASA Wants To Fly This Nuclear Dragonfly Drone On Saturn’s Moon Titan (space.com)
2024-05-09 05:15:00
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