{"id":7936,"date":"2023-12-04T22:40:39","date_gmt":"2023-12-04T14:40:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/nasa-authorizes-dragonfly-to-proceed-with-final-mission-design-work\/"},"modified":"2023-12-04T22:40:39","modified_gmt":"2023-12-04T14:40:39","slug":"nasa-authorizes-dragonfly-to-proceed-with-final-mission-design-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/nasa-authorizes-dragonfly-to-proceed-with-final-mission-design-work\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA Authorizes Dragonfly to Proceed with Final Mission Design Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"NASA<\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s Dragonfly mission has been authorized to proceed with work on final mission design and fabrication \u2013 known as Phase C \u2013 during fiscal year 2024. The agency is postponing formal confirmation of the mission (including its total cost and schedule) until mid-2024, following the release of the FY 2025 President\u2019s Budget Request.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Dragonfly \u2013 a mission to send a rotorcraft to explore Saturn\u2019s moon Titan \u2013 passed all the success criteria of its Preliminary Design Review. The Dragonfly team conducted a re-plan of the mission based on expected funding available in FY 2024 and estimated a revised launch readiness date of July 2028. The Agency will officially assess the mission\u2019s launch readiness date in mid-2024 at the Agency Program Management Council.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Dragonfly team has successfully overcome several technical and programmatic challenges in this daring endeavour to gather new science on Titan,\u201d said Nicola Fox, associate administrator of NASA\u2019s Science Mission Directorate at NASA headquarters in Washington<\/strong>. \u201cI am proud of this team and their ability to keep all aspects of the mission moving toward confirmation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dragonfly takes a novel approach to planetary exploration, for the first time employing a rotorcraft-lander to travel between and sample diverse sites on Titan. Dragonfly\u2019s goal is to characterize the habitability of the moon\u2019s environment, investigate the progression of prebiotic chemistry in an environment where carbon-rich material and liquid water may have mixed for an extended period, and even search for chemical indications of whether water-based or hydrocarbon-based life once existed on Titan.<\/p>\n

Dragonfly is being designed and built under the direction of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, which manages the mission for NASA. The team includes key partners at NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland; Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado; Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin company; NASA\u2019s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California; NASA\u2019s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia; Penn State University in State College, Pennsylvania; Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego, California; Honeybee Robotics in Pasadena, California; NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California; CNES (Centre National d\u2019Etudes Spatiales), the French space agency, in Paris, France; DLR (German Aerospace Center) in Cologne, Germany; and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) in Tokyo, Japan. Dragonfly is the fourth mission in NASA\u2019s New Frontiers Program, managed by NASA\u2019s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the Science Mission Directorate.<\/p>\n