So how is Dragonfly doing now?
In recent times the Dragonfly mission has began to obtain the funding and sources promised when NASA chosen the mission six years in the past. So how is it doing?
“The Dragonfly crew is killing it,” stated Bobby Braun, who’s head of APL’s Area Exploration Sector, in an interview. “In all probability the very best a part of my day is watching that crew hit their milestones.”
Each the spacecraft’s {hardware} and software program are progressing nicely, he stated. Braun expressed confidence that the spacecraft is “on monitor” for a July 2028 launch date on a Falcon Heavy rocket. NASA confirmed this in a brand new replace this week. On this timeline the spacecraft would arrive at Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, in 2034.
It is a difficult mission for quite a lot of causes, starting with getting all the way down to the floor. As a result of Titan has a thick environment, it should take about 90 minutes for the spacecraft to descend. “Curiosity had 7 minutes of terror when it landed on Mars,” Braun stated. “We’ll have 90 minutes of terror on Titan.”
In contrast to Mars, the place there have been a number of orbiters to gather high-resolution floor information about potential touchdown websites, NASA solely has imagery from the Cassini spacecraft that explored the Saturnian system from 2004 to 2017. Happily, this spacecraft deployed a small European probe, Huygens, that landed on Titan in 2005 and survived for about an hour. Dragonfly will draw on the experiences and atmospheric information collected by Huygens.
Among the many key applied sciences on Dragonfly is a complicated Terrain Relative Navigation system to survey the floor and establish hazards. This shall be helpful not simply throughout the preliminary touchdown however for subsequent flights because the rotocraft makes 20-minute jaunts throughout the floor, touring a couple of kilometers at a time. Between every autonomous flight, the spacecraft will recharge its batteries utilizing a radioisotope thermoelectric generator, or RTG energy system. Dragonfly will want this energy to transmit information straight from the floor of Titan again to Earth, as there shall be no relay spacecraft in orbit across the moon.
