Inside NASA’s Ambitious Plan To Explore Saturn’s Largest Moon

We’re embarking on a new age of space exploration, with public and private entities teaming up around the world for missions unlike anything humanity has ever witnessed. And while much of the attention has been on the moon and Mars, NASA is moving forward with a complex (and costly) bid to explore Titan, the largest moon orbiting Saturn.

Dragonfly takes flight

The U.S. space agency has been considering the logistics and funding necessary for this major mission since 2019, and the details have proven to be more complicated than most experts imagined at the beginning.

After two years of delay and an estimated price tag — $3.35 billion — two times as much as the original estimate, however, the wheels of development are now in motion.

NASA’s Nicky Fox celebrated the milestone, calling the Dragonfly project “a spectacular science mission with broad community interest.”

As you might have guessed, this won’t be a manned mission. Instead, scientists say a revolutionary type of drone will robotically survey Titan and provide important information about what the massive moon is like.

A strategic destination

Despite the huge investment of financial and human resources necessary to achieve success, NASA thinks it’s worth it to learn more about Titan. That’s because, despite its remote location in the solar system, this moon appears to share some intriguing similarities with our own planet (at least the way it might have looked eons ago), including:

• An atmosphere distinguished by its orange haze
• A solid surface marked by familiar sand dunes
• Surfaces of methane resembling earthly lakes

But there’s a lot more to learn, and Dragonfly’s mission will involve obtaining samples that could reveal the essential ingredients for life. Barring any future delays, NASA projects a launch date in mid-2028.

Chris Agee April 24th, 2024

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