Inside ‘Dragonfly,’ NASA’s Jaw-Dropping New Drone Mission To Reveal Titan
- by Forbes
- May 05, 2024
- 0 Comments
- 0 Likes Flag 0 Of 10
Exploration Of Titan
âBecause of Titanâs thick, hazy atmosphere, its surface had barely been seen before Cassini and Huygens arrived,â said Turtle. âThe first infrared and radar images revealed the surface, but in many cases, the features were still quite hard to interpret because Titanâs so different from other places weâve explored ... Titan was still a very unfamiliar place when the Huygens probe descended through the atmosphere making measurements of the atmosphere and taking images of the surface.â
When planetary scientists first saw Huygensâ images of river channels and Earth-like landscapes, they were astounded. âI canât wait to go back with Dragonfly,â said Turtle.
Titanâs atmospheric chemistry is more complex than any other known atmosphere in the solar system. Scientists know that it contains many organic molecules, including hydrocarbons and minerals that donât exist on Earth. Titan's chemistry is thought to change with the seasons. However, because Saturn orbits the sun once every 29 Earth years, each season lasts about seven Earth years.
Increasing Costs
The Dragonfly mission will launch in July 2028 atop a superheavy rocketâpossibly a SpaceX Falcon Heavyâto give it enough thrust to land on schedule in 2034. Thatâs despite a COVID delay that has delayed its planned launch in 2026.
The use of a much bigger rocket and an increase in other costs associated with the delay means NASA has committed to spending $3.35 billion on Dragonfly. Back in 2019, when it was selected for NASAâs New Frontiers program, it was meant to cost $1 billionâthe cost-cap of that mission category.
Other New Frontiers missions include the New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt, the Juno mission orbiting Jupiter and OSIRIS-REx, which returned samples from the asteroid Bennu in September.
At $3.35 billion, Dragonfly is approaching the budget of a full-scale NASA flagship missionâand thatâs delayed the following New Horizons mission, which could include:
A Ceres sample return mission.
Flyby mission of Saturnâs moon Enceladus.
An orbiter of Titan.
Please first to comment
Related Post
Tweets by elonmusk
To get the latest tweets please make sure you are logged in on X on this browser.