Titan, one of the nearly 150 moons that orbit the planet Saturn, has attracted the attention of the scientific community for some time. Larger than Mercury in size, it is the only moon in our solar system known to have an Earth-like atmosphere (mainly nitrogen), as well as rivers, lakes and seas of methane and ethane.
This, among other things, makes Saturn's large moon a perfect candidate to study potential discoveries that affect our planet, such as understanding some complex chemical processes that took place on Earth billions of years ago and that preceded life. And also to determine its hypothetical habitability.
In late 2023, NASA asked the President of the United States for a significant budget allocation dedicated to its mission to Titan, which has so far not been adequately studied by any purpose-built spacecraft. Now the green light has just been given to the final design and manufacturing of the aircraft, which is expected to be launched into space in July 2028 and reach its destination in 2034.
The new ship of the US space agency is called Dragonfly and it is a revolutionary rotating nuclear-powered drone the size of a car. This dragonfly-shaped drone will take just over six years to get from Earth to Saturn's large moon and will become NASA's first aerial vehicle of its kind to be used for scientific purposes outside of our planet.
Dragonfly will fly over and land on Titan's organic-rich sands, conduct research, and then take off to find another place worth studying and land there too. The drone will do this repeatedly, “jumping” from one location to another, thanks to incredibly powerful batteries.
Previous space missions, such as Pioneer 11 and the two Voyagers, passed by Saturn's large moon. And there was even a probe called Huygens that our continent sent to its surface in 2005. But until now, a ship has never been built specifically to study it in depth.
The vehicle, which must withstand temperatures of up to -180º C, is being built by the John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and will be equipped with cameras, sensors and sample collectors from areas of special interest, which contain organic materials. which could have been previously mixed with liquid water, now frozen.
The Dragonfly team has achieved important technical advances that will allow the drone unprecedented autonomy and range, as well as unprecedented flight, guidance, navigation and ship control systems. Or a novel landing module that withstands the temperature and atmospheric pressure of the satellite, 50% higher than that of our planet.
In addition to studying the progression of prebiotic chemistry, NASA's drone will confirm or deny the existence of water- or hydrocarbon-based life on Titan, something that is essential in all space exploration. The total cost of the mission amounts to 3.35 billion dollars. In the video that illustrates the news you can see what the Dragonfly will be like, the new milestone in space research.
