Dragonfly lands on Titan
NASA's Dragonfly is a flying lander due to launch in July 2028 and touch down on Saturn's moon Titan in 2034. With eight rotors it will hop from place to place, studying the kind of chemistry that may come before life.
The story
Dragonfly is a NASA spacecraft that will explore Titan, the largest moon of Saturn. It is not a rover that rolls on wheels but a large drone that flies using eight rotors. It is planned to launch on a Falcon Heavy rocket in July 2028 and, after a journey of about six years, to arrive at Titan in 2034. It will be only the second spacecraft to land on Titan, after Huygens in 2005.
Dragonfly weighs about 875 kg, roughly as much as a small car. A drone this heavy can fly because of Titan's conditions. Titan's atmosphere is about four times denser than Earth's, and its gravity is about one-seventh of Earth's. Thick air gives the rotors more air to push against, and weak gravity makes lifting easier. So flying is much easier on Titan than on Earth.
The first landing site is a field of sand dunes in the Shangri-La region near the equator. Over a little more than three years, Dragonfly plans to make many flights and travel more than 100 km in total. Its final goal is Selk Crater. Scientists think that when a meteorite struck there long ago, the heat melted the ice, so liquid water and organic material may have been mixed together for some time.
Radio signals take more than two hours to travel from Earth to Titan and back. That means no one can steer Dragonfly in real time with a controller, so it must check its own landing spots as it flies. Its electricity comes not from solar panels but from the heat of decaying plutonium. Titan is far from the Sun and covered in thick haze, so very little sunlight reaches the surface.
Mission goals
Titan is the only world besides Earth known to have liquid lying on its surface. That liquid is not water, however, but methane and ethane. On Titan this liquid falls as rain, flows in rivers and collects in lakes and seas. Scientists also think an ocean of water is hidden beneath its icy crust.
Titan's atmosphere is full of complex organic material that could be the raw ingredients of life. Organic substances are built on a framework of carbon, like the substances that make up living things on Earth. Dragonfly will study, on the spot, how far this chemistry goes when organic material meets water. It is not searching for life itself, but for the steps that may come before life.
A flying lander is also a big change in how exploration is done. A wheeled rover can take several days to travel one kilometre, but a drone can fly several kilometres in one hop and reach completely different ground. Before it, NASA's small Ingenuity helicopter made 72 flights on Mars, showing that rotors can work on another world.
Mission chronology and background
The first spacecraft to land on Titan was Huygens, in January 2005. Huygens sent back pictures and data during a descent of about two and a half hours under its parachutes, and kept sending data for more than an hour after landing. Cassini, the spacecraft that carried Huygens, orbited Saturn for 13 years, from 2004 to 2017, mapping Titan with radar.
Dragonfly was chosen in 2019 as the fourth mission of NASA's New Frontiers programme. Launch was first planned for 2026, then moved to 2027, and then, because of budget problems, to July 2028. Its total cost has grown far beyond early estimates and is now put at about 3.35 billion dollars. The launch window runs from 5 to 25 July 2028.
A day on Titan lasts about 16 Earth days, so each night lasts about 8 Earth days. During the night Dragonfly recharges its battery from its plutonium power source, and during the day it flies to new places. At each landing site it will drill into surface material and use a mass spectrometer to find out which molecules it contains.
Other milestones of this mission
- Dragonfly launch — to Titan(planned)
Where to see it — sky and simulator
In a small telescope Titan looks like a faint point next to Saturn, and it circles the planet about once every 16 days. Watching over several nights, you can see it swing from one side of Saturn to the other. Select Saturn in NowSky's sky view and zoom in to see Titan's position, or follow Saturn in the orbit view to see Titan's orbit.
Dragonfly has not launched yet, so it has no track in the orbit view. It will be added to the list of spacecraft once its orbit data are published after launch. In the meantime, move the time in the orbit view to July 2028 or to 2034 to see where Earth and Saturn will be around the Sun at launch and at arrival.
FAQ
When does it launch and arrive?
It is planned to launch on a Falcon Heavy rocket in July 2028 and, after about six years of travel, to arrive at Titan in 2034.
Why a drone?
Titan's atmosphere is about four times denser than Earth's and its gravity is about one-seventh, so flying is easy. A drone can also fly several kilometres at a time to study many different kinds of ground, covering far more area than a wheeled rover.
Is it looking for life?
Its goal is to study the chemistry that may come before life rather than to find life itself. In particular, it will look at which molecules formed at Selk Crater, where scientists think water and organic material were once mixed.
How far will it fly?
Over a little more than three years it plans to make many flights, travelling more than 100 km in total. It will fly a few kilometres at a time and study each place where it lands.
Related
- Dragonfly launch
- Perseverance launch — with a helicopter aboard
- JUICE launch — to the icy moons
- Titan — object index
- Saturn — object index
Times and figures are approximate — verify with official sources when planning travel. Simulation uses J2000 mean elements.