It's scientifically ambitious. It's aeronautically daring. And it's unflinchingly expensive. It's NASA's newly approved mission to Saturn's moon, Titan, where the agency will deploy the robotic quadcopter called Dragonfly — successor to the legendary Ingenuity of Mars-mission fame. Approved just last week for a July 2028 launch after doubling its budget to $3.35 billion, the Dragonfly mission is now formally on the books as the agency gears up to make its bold stride across the solar system.
“Dragonfly is a spectacular science mission with broad community interest, and we are excited to take the next steps on this mission," said NASA administrator Nicky Fox, of the agency's Science Mission Directorate, in a recent statement. "Exploring Titan will push the boundaries of what we can do with rotorcraft outside of Earth.”
NASA chose the Dragonfly mission almost five years ago and a large chunk of its new $3.35 billion budget reflects the agency's determination to shepherd the ambitious project through the immense fiscal upheaval caused by COVID-19 and more recent budget battles between Congress and the White House.
“With the Dragonfly mission, NASA will once again do what no one else can do,” NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said. “Visiting this mysterious ocean world could revolutionize what we know about life in the universe. This cutting-edge mission would have been unthinkable even just a few years ago, but we’re now ready for Dragonfly’s amazing flight.”
Despite its charmingly bug-sized name, Dragonfly is a beast of a machine unlike any NASA's ever designed, and will be able to carry a surface-exploring vehicle about the size of a bigger Mars rover through the moon's treacherous freezing temperature, braving minus 290º Fahrenheit.
NASA will have the benefit of 13 years of data it collected by the Cassini spacecraft and the European Space Agency's Huygens probe, the latter of which gave the world its first pictures of Titan. As reported by Ars Technica on Tuesday, Dragonfly's mission will take it to more than 30 locations on Titan over it's three-year mission window, flying tens of kilometers per month to study its organic-rich composition.
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