{"id":23275,"date":"2020-09-10T00:52:36","date_gmt":"2020-09-09T16:52:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/dragonfly-is-a-relocatable-lander-drone-designed-to-fly-on-saturns-titan-moon\/"},"modified":"2020-09-10T00:52:36","modified_gmt":"2020-09-09T16:52:36","slug":"dragonfly-is-a-relocatable-lander-drone-designed-to-fly-on-saturns-titan-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/dragonfly-is-a-relocatable-lander-drone-designed-to-fly-on-saturns-titan-moon\/","title":{"rendered":"Dragonfly is a \u2018relocatable lander\u2019 drone designed to fly on Saturn\u2019s Titan moon"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"img-border featured-image wp-block-image--obfuscated\">\n<p>\t<img width=\"100%\" src=\"https:\/\/spaceexplored.com\/wp-content\/themes\/ninetofive\/dist\/images\/default-spaceexplored-related-guide.png?w=1600\" class=\"skip-lazy wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/spaceexplored.com\/wp-content\/themes\/ninetofive\/dist\/images\/default-spaceexplored-related-guide.png?w=320&amp;quality=82&amp;strip=all&amp;ssl=1 320w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/spaceexplored.com\/wp-content\/themes\/ninetofive\/dist\/images\/default-spaceexplored-related-guide.png?w=640&amp;quality=82&amp;strip=all&amp;ssl=1 640w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/spaceexplored.com\/wp-content\/themes\/ninetofive\/dist\/images\/default-spaceexplored-related-guide.png?w=1024&amp;quality=82&amp;strip=all&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/spaceexplored.com\/wp-content\/themes\/ninetofive\/dist\/images\/default-spaceexplored-related-guide.png?w=1500&amp;quality=82&amp;strip=all&amp;ssl=1 1500w\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\" data-attachment-id=\"4646\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/spaceexplored.com\/2020\/09\/09\/dragonfly-drone-saturn-moon-titan\/nasa-dragonfly-drone\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/spaceexplored.com\/wp-content\/themes\/ninetofive\/dist\/images\/default-spaceexplored-related-guide.png\" data-orig-size=\"1920,1080\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-title=\"NASA Dragonfly drone\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\n\n<p>Image: NASA<\/p>\n<p>&#8221; data-large-file=&#8221;https:\/\/spaceexplored.com\/wp-content\/themes\/ninetofive\/dist\/images\/default-spaceexplored-related-guide.png?w=1024&#8243;><figcaption>\n\t\t\t\tImage: NASA\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It turns out that Titan, one of Saturn\u2019s many moons, is a relatively optimal place to fly a drone. This is due to the fact that Titan\u2019s atmosphere is four times denser than the Earth\u2019s. So when NASA chose Titan as the next location to \u201csearch for the building blocks of life,\u201d they decided to take advantage of that by using a drone instead of a typical rover.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"more-4645\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dragonfly will essentially be a large drone with eight rotors that weighs in at around 1,200 pounds. It will be approximately the same size as the Curiosity rover, only much more maneuverable due to its form factor. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Described as a \u201crelocatable lander,\u201d Dragonfly will travel by flight from location to location much quicker than even the fastest rover to date. NASA describes Dragonfly\u2019s capabilities as being able to \u201cfly its entire science payload to new places for repeatable and targeted access to surface materials.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dragonfly was chosen to be part of NASA\u2019s New Frontiers program. The purpose of the program is to \u201csupport missions that have been identified as top solar system exploration priorities by the planetary community.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>\t<span class=\"outbrain-ad-label\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t<script type=\"text\/plain\">\n\t\t\twindow.adSlotsConfig = window.adSlotsConfig || [];<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tadSlotsConfig.push( {\n\t\t\t\tslotID: '\/1049447\/Outbrain',\n\t\t\t\tslotName: 'div-gpt-ad-outbrain-ad-4645',\n\t\t\t\tsizes: [300, 250],\n\t\t\t\tslotPosition: 'mid_article'\n\t\t\t} );\n\t\t<\/script><\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xn3-0a19sC8?version=3&amp;rel=0&amp;showsearch=0&amp;showinfo=1&amp;iv_load_policy=1&amp;fs=1&amp;hl=en-US&amp;autohide=2&amp;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Titan was chosen as the location for many reasons. It has a nitrogen-based atmosphere similar to Earth, has methane rain, and possesses many other organics formed in the atmosphere that \u201cfall like light snow.\u201d All of these factors, among many others, are what makes Titan such an excellent place for NASA to explore using this cutting edge rover.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">NASA currently has plans to launch Dragonfly in 2026, meaning that the rover will arrive at Titan in 2034, eight years later. Utilizing thirteen years of weather data captured by Cassini, Dragonfly should be greeted by calm weather. Upon arrival, the goal is to land Dragonfly in Titan\u2019s equatorial region, largely consisting of dunes. From there, as described above, Dragonfly will fly to a diverse set of locations to collect and observe. In total, Dragonfly will fly about 110 miles over the course of two and a half years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The New Frontiers program has been an essential piece of the puzzle when it comes to progressing our understanding of the solar system. Dragonfly and the mission that it will embark on will hopefully add to that, advancing our understanding even further.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">More<\/h2>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Dispatches from NASA: Countdown to Mars kicks off a decade of science and discovery<\/li>\n<li>Launch Rundown: The path to NASA\u2019s upcoming Mars 2020 Perseverance and Ingenuity mission<\/li>\n<li>NASA\u2019s Ingenuity Mars helicopter gets first boot in space<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Via NASA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23275"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23275\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}