Tag: Dragonfly
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After early struggles, NASA’s ambitious mission to Titan is “on track” for launch
A new independent report finds that although NASA’s ambitious mission to fly across the surface of Titan is delayed and over budget, the fault is due to the space agency’s management rather than the program itself. Released Tuesday by NASA’s Office of Inspector General, the report found that the mission’s budget has soared from an…
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How Dragonfly will support the search for life on an uninhabitable world
In July 2028, NASA’s next New Frontiers program mission, Dragonfly, will launch to Saturn atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy. Six years later, it will descend through the thick clouds and atmospheric layers of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan — finding a world that is both similar to and different from Earth. While on Titan, Dragonfly will…
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NASA awards SpaceX a contract for one of the few things it hasn’t done yet
When you compare SpaceX to the world’s other space enterprises, it’s probably easier to list the things SpaceX hasn’t done instead of reciting all of the company’s achievements. One of these is the launch of nuclear materials. SpaceX has launched a handful of planetary science missions for NASA, but these spacecraft have all used solar…
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News from the Press Site: NASA explores new path for Mars Sample Return, Dragonfly mission to Titan gets green light
As NASA faced a mission price tag and timeline for the Mars Sample Return mission that the administrator called “unacceptable,” the agency is turning to both its various centers around the country and to the private sector to find workable solutions. Administrator Bill Nelson said MSR remains one of NASA’s highest priorities and he said…
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Arriving at Titan: How Dragonfly’s Entry, Descent, and Landing will differ from Mars missions
Since the focus on Martian exploration ramped up in the mid-1990s, most of the familiarity with the Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) sequence of landers and rovers to the surface of other planets has taken place against the backdrop of Mars. But when NASA‘s upcoming Dragonfly mission arrives at Titan for its own EDL, it…
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Dragonfly mission heads toward PDR, element fabrication from Lockheed Martin set to begin
Dragonfly, NASA’s unique robotic exploration mission using a rotorcraft to fly a science laboratory around the surface of Saturn’s moon Titan, is continuing to march through its preliminary design steps. Rotor design and testing for the craft as well as Preliminary Design Reviews (PDRs) from Lockheed Martin on the subsystem portions of their contracted elements…
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Titan impact craters reveal connections to planetary weather, set the stage for Dragonfly
Titan, the atmosphere-shrouded moon of Saturn, has captivated scientists’ attention since its formal discovery on 25 March 1655. While in-situ observations of the moon ended in September 2017 when the Cassini spacecraft was purposely plunged into Saturn’s atmosphere at the end of its mission, data from the 13 year scientific voyage continues to reveal information…
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NASA preparing to fly Ingenuity Mars drone, enabling future airborne missions
As NASA’s newest Mars rover, Perseverance, continues its own checkouts and tests, work is starting for a new phase of the mission – the Ingenuity helicopter. This first-of-its-kind piece of hardware will demonstrate (non-rocket) powered flight on a world other than Earth for the first time. Data from these flights – expected to begin in…
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Cassini answers Titan secrets, NASA plans helicopter mission to cloudy world
Even though Cassini ended its mission nearly two years ago, data from all of the spacecraft’s flybys of the Saturnian moon Titan continue to help scientists unlock the mysteries of this world shrouded by a thick, dense atmosphere. Now, NASA is planning a return to this extreme object of interest in the solar system –…
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NASA picks Dragonfly mission to send a nuclear drone to Saturnian moon Titan
An artist’s conception shows the Dragonfly probe on the dunes of Titan. (NASA / JHUAPL Illustration) NASA has chosen to commit up to $850 million to creating an interplanetary probe unlike any seen before: a rotor-equipped spacecraft that will fly through the smoggy atmosphere of Titan, Saturn’s biggest moon. The Dragonfly mission will be managed…