Dragonfly will use a nuclear-powered rotorcraft to explore Titan's potential to host life

NASA has announced that it has selected SpaceX to provide launch services for the Dragonfly mission, which is set to explore Saturn's largest moon, Titan. The mission will utilize SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket, launching from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with a targeted launch window from July 5, 2028, to July 25, 2028, according to NASA.

The Dragonfly mission is a $3.35 billion project designed to investigate Titan's potential to host life. It will employ a nuclear-powered rotorcraft lander with eight rotors to travel between and sample diverse sites on Titan, examining the moon's habitability. NASA stated that "the Dragonfly mission will advance the search for the building blocks of life."

NASA awarded SpaceX a firm-fixed-price contract valued at approximately $256.6 million for the Dragonfly mission, which includes launch services and other mission-related costs, as reported by Space.com. The Falcon Heavy rocket, which has been previously used for launching NASA missions such as Psyche, will carry the Dragonfly spacecraft on its journey to Titan.

Once Dragonfly arrives at Titan in 2034, after spending six years traveling to the moon, it will spend at least two years exploring the moon's surface. The rotorcraft will move through Titan's thick atmosphere and pass over the moon's rough, challenging terrain.

Titan is a unique world in our solar system. It hosts seas and lakes of hydrocarbons, making it the only body beyond Earth known to have stable liquids on its surface. Organic compounds, the carbon-containing building blocks of life as we know it, are common on Titan. Some scientists think Titan may be capable of supporting life, either on its surface or in its suspected subterranean ocean of liquid water.

The Dragonfly rotorcraft will use various scientific instruments to measure chemistry on Titan and collect and send data to its mission controllers on Earth. The mission will explore regions likely to have a mix of carbon-rich materials and liquid water, which are essential for life.

Nicky Fox, NASA's associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate, said: "Dragonfly is a spectacular science mission with broad community interest, and we are excited to take the next steps on this mission." She also stated: "Exploring Titan will push the boundaries of what we can do with rotorcraft outside of Earth," as reported by Digital Trends.

The Dragonfly mission is managed for NASA at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, where the spacecraft is being built. The team comprises scientists, engineers, technologists, managers, and more with deep experience on missions that have explored the solar system from the Sun to Pluto and beyond. NASA reported that "the team includes experts in rotorcraft, autonomous flight, and space systems from around the globe."

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the New Frontiers Program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Dragonfly mission is the fourth mission in NASA's New Frontiers Program, which NASA first announced in 2019.

The Falcon Heavy is SpaceX's current super heavy launch vehicle. It is used for missions that require more mass than a Falcon 9 supports but not as much as human spaceflight missions like the Artemis moon missions, which the Starship is intended for.

Falcon Heavy is the second-most-powerful rocket currently in operation, after NASA's Space Launch System moon rocket. Using a more powerful rocket like the Falcon Heavy can shorten the cruise phase in which the spacecraft travels through the solar system.

The Dragonfly mission will study Titan to determine if water-based or hydrocarbon-based life could ever have existed there, searching for chemical indications of such life. The spacecraft will begin its exploration in the dune fields along Titan's equator, which are similar to the ones in Namibia, and will search for chemical indications of whether water-based or hydrocarbon-based life once existed on Titan.

Titan is known for its diverse surface features, including rough and smooth areas, lakes and seas made of ethane and methane, plains, dunes, and impact craters, making it a world unlike any other. 

This article was written in collaboration with generative AI company Alchemiq