NASA has awarded SpaceX a contract to launch the Dragonfly mission to Saturn's moon Titan. A Falcon Heavy will send the rotorcraft and its lander to Titan in 2028 if all goes according to plan, and the mission will arrive on Titan in 2034. Dragonfly is an astrobiology mission aimed at measuring the presence of various chemicals on Titan's icy moon.
Dragonfly will be the second spacecraft to visit Titan, joining the Huygens probe and its brief visit in 2005.
Titan is notable because it is the only body other than Earth to have liquids on its surface. The fluids are hydrocarbons, not water, although surface deposits of water ice can occur from impacts or cryovolcanic eruptions. Researchers believe prebiotic chemicals are also present, making the moon a tempting target for understanding how advanced prebiotic chemistry may have become.
These images of Titan's known hydrocarbon seas come from Cassini radar data. Image source: [JPL-CALTECH/NASA, ASI, USGS]
Titan is harmless when it comes to powered flight; Its atmosphere is dense and its gravity is weak compared to Earth. Dragonfly is an octocopter, a large quadcopter with twin rotors that can take advantage of Titan's flight-friendly conditions. It will fly at a speed of about 36 km/h (22 mph) and will be powered by a Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG), a type of engine that has proven itself in multiple missions. The vehicle is designed to be redundant. It can lose one of its motors or rotors and still function.
Dragonfly will land near a feature on Titan called Shangri-La, east of the Huygens probe landing site. Shangri-La is one of three large sand seas near the lunar equator.
Dragonfly's target is the Selk impact structure near the edge of Shangri-La. Selk is a young impact crater about 90 km (56 miles) in diameter that features melt pools, places where liquid water and organic matter could mix to form amino acids or other biomolecules. Dragonfly will first land on some dunes near the structure and then begin exploring the region and its chemistry.
Largely thanks to Cassini and Huygens, researchers have made progress in understanding Titan. In a 2020 paper, researchers examined two types of craters on the moon: dune craters and flat craters. Selk is a dune crater, and in the study the researchers said that the dune craters were richer in organic matter than flatland craters and in fact consisted almost entirely of organic matter. However, Titan's dense atmosphere makes observation difficult, and these findings rely on the interpretation of albedo and emissivity.
According to the research, Selk and the other dune craters may have originally had more water ice, but much of it has been eroded. However, there was a long period of time where the water ice was present, and Dragonfly heads to Selk to study the chemistry in the crater to determine whether water and organic matter interacted and whether prebiotic chemistry progressed.
It's up to SpaceX's Falcon Heavy to send Dragonfly on its way to Titan. Falcon Heavy has 11 launches under its belt, including the Europa Clipper launch in October. After Falcon Heavy Dragonfly launches, the spacecraft will conduct a flyby of Earth to gain additional speed.
It will take Dragonfly six years to reach Titan, and just as it arrives, the entry capsule will be separated from the cruise module. With the help of an aero grenade and two parachutes, the lander will survive a descent of around 105 minutes. At about 1.2 km above the surface, the lander will deploy its skids and perform an autonomous landing based on its lidar and radar data.
From its landing site, Dragonfly will unfold and perform a series of flights up to 8 km (5 miles) in length. The region has diverse geology, and the rotorcraft will collect and then analyze samples during Titan's nights, which last about 8 Earth days, or about 192 hours. Then we go to the Selk crater.
Titan is an important astrobiological target in our solar system, and unlike the frozen ocean moons Europa and Enceladus, it is no more complicated to somehow fight through thick ice before its potential biological environment can be studied.
SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket sends NASA's Europa Clipper into space from its launch pad in Florida. If all goes well, the Falcon Heavy will launch the Dragonfly mission to Titan in July 2028. (NASA Photo / Kim Shiflett)
But in order for all of this to be successful, a successful start is first required. NASA is paying SpaceX about $256 million to launch Dragonfly, and if the launch goes smoothly, it will be money well spent.
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