Titan Dragonfly Archives

November 28, 2023November 28, 2023 by Laurence Tognetti

Titan Dragonfly is Go!…. for Phase C

Artist’s rendition of NASA’s Dragonfly on the surface of Titan. (Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben)

The surface exploration of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, just got one step closer to reality as NASA’s much-anticipated Dragonfly mission recently received approval from the powers that be to advance to Phase C, which is designated as Final Design and Fabrication, according to NASA’s Systems Engineering Handbook. This comes after the Dragonfly team successfully completed all the requirements for Phase B in March 2023, also known as the Preliminary Design Review or Preliminary Design and Technology Completion in the NASA Systems Engineering Handbook.

March 21, 2023March 21, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

If Titan Has the Chemistry For Life, Dragonfly Could Find it

In this illustration, the Dragonfly helicopter drone is descending to the surface of Titan. Image: NASA

The highly-anticipated Dragonfly robotic rotocraft mission to Saturn’s moon Titan is scheduled to launch in 2027. When it arrives in the mid-2030s, it will hover and zoom around in the thick atmosphere of Titan, sampling the air and imaging the landscape. What could be more exciting than that!?

Well, actually … there’s more: Dragonfly will also be equipped with a mass spectrometer that will help it search for the chemistry of life in this alien world. Astrobiologists want to know if Titan has the same type of chemistry on its surface that Earth did in its early history, which could have helped give rise to life on our planet.

November 19, 2020November 19, 2020 by Nancy Graziano

Weekly Space Hangout: November 18, 2020 – Dr. Ralph Lorenz, Planetary Scientist and Dragonfly Mission Architect

This week we are airing Fraser’s pre-recorded interview with Dr. Ralph Lorenz, planetary scientist and aerospace engineer from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. Ralph is the Mission Architect of the upcoming Dragonfly Mission to Titan, and the author of the new book, Saturn’s Moon Titan Owners’ Workshop Manual.

Podcast (wshaudio): Download (Duration: 59:42 — 27.3MB)

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August 2, 2019August 2, 2019 by Fraser Cain

How Habitable is Titan? NASA is Sending the Titan Dragonfly Helicopter to Find Out

A proposed eight-bladed drone (aka. "dragonfly") could be ideally suited for exploring Saturn's moon Titan in the coming decades. Credit: APL/Michael Carroll

There are few places in the Solar System which are as fascinating as Saturn’s moon Titan. It’s a world with a thicker atmosphere than Earth. Where it’s so cold that it rains ammonia, forming lakes, rivers and seas. Where water ice forms mountains.

Like Europa and Encleadus, Titan could have an interior ocean of liquid water too, a place where there might be life.