NASA's Dragonfly Mission: Nuclear-Powered Drone to Explore Saturn's Moon Titan in 2028
NASA is preparing to launch the Dragonfly mission in July 2028, a car-sized, 1,000-pound nuclear-powered drone to Saturn's moon Titan. The $3.35 billion mission will take six years to reach Titan, arriving in 2034. Titan's atmosphere is four times denser than Earth's and gravity is one-seventh as strong, making flight easier than on Earth. Dragonfly uses eight rotors and a plutonium-powered MMRTG to charge batteries for autonomous flights of about 30 minutes, covering several kilometers per hop. Over three years, it will explore dozens of sites, searching for prebiotic carbon chemistry. Instruments include a mass spectrometer (DraMS), gamma-ray/neutron spectrometer (DraGNS), panoramic camera (DragonCam), and weather station (DraGMet). The mission represents a shift from wheeled rovers to rotorcraft for planetary exploration.
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