Dragonfly takes off wild orange, direct for his next destination on Titan in the impression of this artist. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben
About 800 million miles (1.2 billion kilometers) from the earth is the Titan rake about clouds, the largest of the following of Lunes of 146 of Saturn. In this darkness and subferentant patch of the external sun system, the sun barely shines 1 % of its strength in the terrestrial skies. It is certainly not the ideal place to look for life, but however impossible it seems, the bricks of life could have taken root in this desolate land based on radiation.
Now, NASA is destined to explore this world – and climb over it – with a robotic robot of Dronelike named Dragonfly that will patrol the alien moon for signs of habitability. Last Friday, the agency announced that the mission approved its critical revision of the design, a key milestone. This means that the design of the boat-essentially a car-based quadcopter and nuclear-powered-is approved and the mission can start the construction.
In July 2028, Dragonfly will launch on board Spacex Falcon Heavy Rocket from the Kennedy Space Center of Florida. The mission will explode different geological positions, study prebiotic chemistry and will evaluate the past and present habitability of this world. In case of success, it will reach the first controlled and controlled flight in the Moon atmosphere.
Although he was approved to progress in his final design phase by NASA in April 2024, Dragonfly has fallen by three years late and slipped beyond his strictly mandatory budget, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the increases in the supply chain and federal financing cuts. Between 2020 and 2022, Dragonfly has undergone multiple reprans of the mission, but the intelligent constructions of his trajectory and a powerful launch vehicle will ensure that he does not lose time to get to Titan by 2034.
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Discovered in 1655 by the Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens and initially known as Saturn Luna (“Moon of Saturn”), Titano gained his name in 1847 courtesy of Sir John Herschel of Great Britain. Greater on the planet Mercury, its equatorial diameter of 3,100 km (5,100 km) of Titano as the second moon of the Solar System (after the Ganimede of Jupiter) and the only one known to have a substantial atmosphere.
That gaseous veil, orange, gaseous is four times dense than that of the earth. As on our planet, nitrogen predominates on the titan, although in greater quantities relating to 94.2 percent compared to 78 percent on earth. Methane contributes with another 5.6 percent. But oxygen – a pillar of biological systems and supporting life as we know it – is considerably absent.
The surface temperatures of –290 degrees Fahrenheit (-180 degrees Celsius) and pressed 50 percent more than the terrestrial level painting a picture of a cupiously alien world – but Titan offers a hints to the family member. Its atmosphere and climate produce clouds, slow twenty and “rain”. And its surface characteristics are evocative of the earth, with turbinating dunes not of sand but of hydrocarbons of cereal and rivers size, lakes and seas not of a slow flow methane.
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These surface, time and complex organic processes can resemble the way the earth appeared in its childhood, about 3.8 billion years ago. The dragonfly of about 1,000 pounds (450 kilograms) could reveal clues about the early billion years of existence of our planet, with Titan who provides a laboratory to discover the prebiotic chemistry that precipitated the first agitations of earthly life.
Several past missions observed Titan from Afar: Pioneer 11 in 1979, Voyager 1 and 2 in 1980-1981 and Cassini in 2004-2017. In addition, the European Huygens probe descends the Titan surface in 2005. But nobody could explore the world surface widely enough to study its potential for life, evaluate to what extent the prebiotic chemistry could have progressive on Titan or search for biosignatures.
Flying an aerial vehicle on Titan and transferring an entire package of scientific tools from one position to another to collect samples from different sites with different geological stories bring a great charm. The low severity of Titan – only 13.8 percent is as strong as ours – and the thick and calm atmosphere make it ideal for the flight and the powered rotorcraft.
But the cryogenic environment temperatures, the low light levels and the highest atmospheric drags on the Dragonfly cell will bring their challenges.
Design of dragonfly
Dragonfly was born during an over-cena conversation among the Jason Barnes scientists of the University of Aidaho and Ralph Lorenz of the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) at Johns Hopkins University. In June 2019, NASA selected the mission as part of its new Frontiers program, with $ 850 million escapade and targeted for the launch in June 2026 for the arrival in Titan in 2034.
However, Covid-19 and budget constraints pushed NASA in 2020 to request the Dragonfly team to pursue a readiness of the alternative launch of June 2027. And when the mission approved its preliminary revision of design in March 2023, its total expected cost had been swollen to $ 3.35 billion.
In November 2023, NASA has again postponed the launch-back to the time until July 2028, directing Dragonfly team to use a more powerful and heavy launch vehicle to ensure that the arrival date of 2034 Titan could still be satisfied.
Last April, NASA approved the mission to progress towards the final design, the construction and test of both the space vehicle and its scientific useful load. In November 2024, Spacex’s Falcon Heavy was chosen to launch Dragonfly during a three -week window that extends from 5 to 25 July 2028. And in the most recent milestone of the mission, NASA announced on April 25 that Dragonfly had passed her designer review
Designed, built and managed for NASA by APL, Dragonfly is a double quadruma each rotor extends 4.4 feet (1.35 meters) and the entire unit provides a redundancy measure to tolerate faults or partial functionality loss.
The entire craftsmanship measures 12.5 feet (3.85 m) in length and is powered by a nuclear generator designed for space vehicles called thermoelectric generator with multi-dumbly radioisotopus (MMRTG); It provides 70 watts of electricity to load the lithium ion battery of 134 hours of 134 hours of Dragonfly during the eight -day Titanian night. Flying at 22 mph (36 km/h) and able to reach altitudes of 13,000 feet (4,000 m), Dragonfly should be able to travel up to 10 miles (16 km) with a single battery charge.
Mission objectives
The mission presents contributions from industry and academic world of the United States, as well as national space agencies of France, Germany and Japan.
The mass spectrometer of the dragonfly (Drams) will identify the chemical compounds in surface and atmospheric samples. This US/French tool owes its heritage in part to the analysis of the sample to the Mars (Sam) instrument on board the NASA Curiosity Rover. Honeybee Robotics’ Drill for acquisition of Complex Organics (Draco) will use a rotating percussive drill to extract the regolite; A pneumatic transfer system will escape samples in dramas for analysis.
The gamma and neutron ray spectrometer (Dragns), built by APL and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, will characterize the surface composition of Titan directly under the space vehicle on the Titan surface.
The package of geophysical and meteorology to APL (dragmet) includes a suite of sensors to monitor the weather conditions and characterize the nature of the regolite and measure seismic activity. These measurements could offer insights on the thickness of the Titan crust and deep interiors, including the possible existence of a salted ocean of subsubic liquid water.
And Malin Space Science Systems Dragoncam provides a suite of microscopic and panoramic cameras to imagine the ground and titan scout for potential landing sites.
Upon arrival
The use of the Falcon Heavy and a terrestrial gravity assistance maneuver allows the NASA to preserve the arrival of Dragonfly in Titan from 2034 – which will arrive almost a year of complete Saturn (equal to 29.5 years of earth) after Huygens landed in 2005. This guarantees the prevalence of similar and predictable atmospheric conditions when Dragonfly touches down.
Entering the atmosphere of Titan, a protective aeroshell will protect the space vehicle for the first six minutes of descent, after which Drogue and Main Parachutes lift to slow down its speed below subonsonous speeds. In view of the thickness of the atmosphere, this parachute descent phase should last about 105 minutes. Finally, at an altitude of 0.75 miles (1.2 km), Dragonfly will separate and a descent fed to the surface will begin.
It will torment between the dunes on the edge of a dark organic region called Shangri-la. Two decades ago, Huygens provided a look at the landscape of the moon: a cupiously orange sky, no longer bright than the civil twilight here on earth and an clay surface that the scientists compared to color and consistency with a crème Brucée.
Shangri-la has been compared to Namibia in southern Africa-its dunes probably rise to 300-600 feet (100–180 m). The key objectives include the Selk Impact Crater 56 miles (90 km) wide, which could contain organic compounds and perhaps liquid water.
Once Dragonfly arrives in Shanggra-La, his mission will start seriously. If everything is fine, during its three -year operational duration, Dragonfly will cover about 100 miles (160 km) and will visit dozens of locations landing on safe land, then sailing in more demanding points.
He promises to be an epic aerial journey on the farthest world in which a plane has ever flown.
