NASA Is Sending An Aerial Drone To Titan

Titan, often known as the moon of Saturn, appears to be a fascinating object within the solar system, with its electrically charged sand, oily black seas, and hazy golden atmosphere. NASA gave its approval on the mission of sending a small aerial drone to this moon. The drone is going to soar above the alien surface collecting data.

Created by Johns Hopkins APL - Applied Physics Laboratory, the dual-quadcopter drone’s name is Dragonfly. In a press conference, NASA made its announcement about this exciting mission. It was chosen instead of CAESAR - Comet Astrobiology Exploration Sample Return in which a spacecraft would be sent to take samples of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko’s surface. Both CAESAR and the new mission were chosen amongst 12 proposals that belong to the New Frontiers initiative of NASA where they can deploy for up to $1 billion while tackling the matter of high scientific priority.

However, although CAESAR along with its team from Cornell University was potential, it is clear that Dragonfly project was a better option. We still remember the new that recently, Rosetta spacecraft of ESA visited the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and the success of Stardust mission 2006 in bringing back the samples of a comet. It is doubtful that science and public would be stirred again by a return project to the comet, like by the project to the Saturnian moon. Certainly, this new mission Titan will give us a surprisingly pleasant experience.

The dual-quadrotor – the small aerial drone will move quickly through different spots, measure and observe with the panoramic view of the world. It takes a rover with six wheels several years to cover the same territories on the moon. The drone will also have the feature of taking off and landing vertically, like the recreational drones on Earth.

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The width of Titan is twice as that of the Moon. There is a striking resemblance and at the same time, a huge difference between Titan and Earth. It is the only moon with an atmosphere, and it is thicker than that of the Earth. Also, Titan has a surface with stable liquid made from methane, canyons, rivers and lakes, oceans, and liquid water. The surface is struck by rain and dust storms which contain liquid methane. The mission has a lot of goals, but Dragonfly is going to research Titan’s capability to foster life.

On Titan, there is thick material containing a lot of carbons. Once this material and liquid water interacted, a primordial goop like prebiotic chemistry might be produced, like the one supporting life on Earth. The drone will also be provided with some instruments like a microscopic and panoramic camera, a wide-range spectrometer, gamma-ray spectrometer, and many more.

Scientists from NASA explained that the probe is planned to be landed near some sand dunes, then it would hop to a large crater. They also added that the drone would need to endure low temperatures (-300 degree), especially, it is going to discover the Selk – Titan’s impact crater that perhaps used to hold complex organics and liquid water.

As informed by NASA, the mission was anticipated to remain on Titan for around two years and a half. During this time, the drone would make about 25 hops and fly about 180 kilometers or 110 miles in total.

NASA is hoping that the mission will be launched by the year 2026. However, it is sad that we will need to wait until 2034 for Dragonfly to land on Titan, which is worth waiting actually. What the drone will take, data or images will be different from what we have seen before. Huygens mission to Titan in 2005 of ESA was amazing, which brought back some cool pictures and science; however, it cannot beat Dragonfly.

There are some missions in New Frontiers initiatives of NASA, including the New Horizons to MU69 and Pluto, the OSIRIS- orbiting an asteroid called Bennu and finally, the current Juno around Jupiter.