Dragonfly mission to Titan

Flyaway

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Awesome news in my book this decision.

BIG NEWS: The next

@NASASolarSystem

mission is… #Dragonfly – a rotorcraft lander mission to Saturn’s largest moon Titan. This ocean world is the only moon in our solar system with a dense atmosphere & we’re so excited to see what Dragonfly discovers: (link: https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1BdGYARXvdYGX) twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1…


Official website:

 
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dam it takes 15 years until arrival at Titan
if Capitol Hill give money for a nuclear powered drone
and do include the mission a Titan orbiter/communication Sat for Dragonfly ?
 
That would be far too logical for the denizens of Congress, especially the ones currently in control of the House of Representatives.
 
dam it takes 15 years until arrival at Titan
if Capitol Hill give money for a nuclear powered drone
and do include the mission a Titan orbiter/communication Sat for Dragonfly ?

I believe the drone will be doing direct contact with Earth.

New Frontiers missions which this is one are cost capped at $1 billion.
 
NASA will fund a revolutionary mission to fly through Titan’s atmosphere

"[Dragonfly] has so much potential for fundamental science," said Elizabeth Turtle, a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physical Laboratory who is the principal investigator for the mission. Scientists believe the complex organic chemistry in the atmosphere of Titan and on its surface may look something like the chemistry on Earth before life developed. "Titan is just a perfect chemical laboratory to understand pre-biotic chemistry," Turtle said.
"We want to do something bold and take measured risks," said Zurbuchen, who added that the weight of Apollo's 50th anniversary has been on his mind. This is an agency that has done great things, and his Science directorate wants to live up to that legacy.

"I've been asking myself what it means to be a part of an agency that has this great history," he said. One thing it appears to mean is that NASA could have something to celebrate on the 65th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing.
 
I would like to to know how Dragonfly would fly on Titan semi-autonomous or fully autonomous?
launch date for moment is 2026
it can be that over next 5 years
the Dagonfly Software is ready for fully autonomous operation
 
Something else for Dragonfly to look out for in the atmosphere of Titan.


Titan keeps on getting stranger and stranger, I am looking forward to 2027 and the launch of Dragonfly. Hopefully it will discover what is producing the molecule in Titan’s atmosphere.
 
The MMRTG will power NASA’s Dragonfly mission to explore Saturn’s moon Titan, and is being considered for the Trident mission to explore Neptune’s largest moon Triton, which is believed to have a liquid ocean.

 
On a related note:
Grey Havoc said:


Think I might set up a dedicated thread on it here or over in Space Projects.

EDIT: One of the mods saved me the trouble, thanks!
 
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Via NSF:


Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets

Commentary
Free Access
The Challenging Depths of Titan's Seas
Ralph D. Lorenz
First published: 09 April 2021

New analyses of Cassini radar altimeter data (Poggiali et al., 2020, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JE006558) measure the 85 m depth and “brackish” (moderately ethane‐poor) composition of Moray Sinus, an estuary at the northern margin of Titan's largest sea, Kraken Mare. No bottom echo was detected on Kraken itself, suggesting it is either very deep, ethane‐rich, or both.
 
View: https://twitter.com/theplanetaryguy/status/1404547710372311042


Not much more detail on this for now, but it seems that the launch vehicle that will carry the #Dragonfly mission to Titan will get the quadcopter there *three years* earlier than originally planned.

That's a huge boost for the cost of the mission, and the power in the RTG!

View: https://twitter.com/13ericralph31/status/1404559778177716230


If NASA is already leaning towards a launch vehicle for Dragonfly, it's almost certainly an expendable Falcon Heavy. Vulcan with six SRBs comes closeish but unlike Vulcan, FH has significant flight history and a NASA launch contract (Psyche).
 
Modification to the MMRTG that they'll use:

“Because the MMRTG has about 2,000 watts of thermal power that are waste heat, we actually try to trap all that inside our lander to keep it warm,” Hibbard says. “So we’ve cut the fin length in half because we don’t want to radiate that heat away. And we have a series of fans that pull the waste heat from the MMRTG and distribute it under the lander body up to the nose.”

 
Modification to the MMRTG that they'll use:

“Because the MMRTG has about 2,000 watts of thermal power that are waste heat, we actually try to trap all that inside our lander to keep it warm,” Hibbard says. “So we’ve cut the fin length in half because we don’t want to radiate that heat away. And we have a series of fans that pull the waste heat from the MMRTG and distribute it under the lander body up to the nose.”

Fascinating
 
Dragonfly now looks like it’s namesake but in a robot way so now it looks like it’s out of the MCU or something.

View: https://twitter.com/PlanetDr/status/1601319059877814272

Titan's atmosphere is ridiculously thick for a satellite of its size. It is heaven for flying objects since the gravity is so low compared to air density. Hypothetically speaking a fit person can strap wings on his/her arms and take off by flapping. If anyone is curious why the rotors on Dragonfly seem so small compared with the body, that's the reason.
 
View: https://twitter.com/tgmetsfan98/status/1614028369766531073


In an interview with NASASpaceflight, Lockheed Martin discusses the upcoming Preliminary Design Review for Dragonfly: the mission to fly a nuclear-powered rotorcraft on Titan, a moon of Saturn.

By Chris Gebhardt (@ChrisG_NSF):

 
Interesting design concept, I take it that Dragonfly's team are learning a lot from Ingenuity on Mars as to how they will operate the helicopter on Titan. The fact that it is going to be Nuclear powered is good because of the thick atmosphere.
 
View: https://twitter.com/nasasolarsystem/status/1639324880058605569


✅ Pass the technical requirements of the Preliminary Design Review!

The #DragonflyMission is one step closer to exploring Saturn’s moon, Titan, after sharing spacecraft design, mission requirements, and science plans with a panel of external experts.


Mar 24, 2023

NASA’s Dragonfly Team Soars through Major Design Review

Before it can fly its revolutionary rotorcraft over the organic dunes of Saturn’s moon Titan, NASA’s Dragonfly mission team needs to navigate a series of independent reviews to demonstrate the flight project is on track.

Led by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, the team recently crossed a major milestone on that path, successfully passing all the technical requirements and standards of the weeklong Preliminary Design Review (PDR) that wrapped up on March 3.

“I am very proud of the entire Dragonfly team,” said Bobby Braun, head of APL’s Space Exploration Sector. “APL, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Lockheed Martin, and all of our partners really came together to deliver a credible technical baseline. The fidelity and thought that went into each decision was clearly communicated and forms a solid foundation upon which the team can build.”

The PDR – a requirement for all NASA missions – covers topics such as spacecraft design, mission requirements, science plans, schedule, cost, and risk. Held at APL, which manages the mission and will build and operate the Dragonfly lander, the PDR included more than 60 presentations to a panel of external experts tasked with evaluating and assessing mission progress for NASA.

“I’m excited to see all of the Dragonfly mission's design components coming together,” said Lori Glaze, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “This mission team's hard work has resulted in the technical design for a spacecraft that can conduct compelling science to increase our understanding of Titan.”

NASA will consider the board’s findings in a confirmation review later this year, examining Dragonfly’s cost, schedule, and the recommended baseline plan forward.

“The team did a fantastic job,” said Dragonfly Principal Investigator Zibi Turtle, also of APL. “Everyone worked so hard to make sure the review board had a clear idea not just of the great progress we've made to close out the design but of our technical challenges, and how we plan to overcome them. We’re incredibly excited to have completed this step, and are ready to continue our work on the next phase of Dragonfly development -- including testing in the large Titan-environment chamber here at APL over the next year.”

Dragonfly centers on a game-changing approach to planetary exploration, employing a rotorcraft-lander to travel between and sample diverse sites on this mysterious world. Dragonfly will characterize the habitability of Titan's environment, investigate the progression of prebiotic chemistry in an environment where carbon-rich material and liquid water may have mixed for an extended period, and even search for chemical indications of whether water-based or hydrocarbon-based life once existed on Titan.

Dragonfly is being designed and built under the direction of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, which manages the Dragonfly mission for NASA. The team includes key partners at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland; Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado; NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California; NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia; Penn State University in State College, Pennsylvania; Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego, California; Honeybee Robotics in Pasadena, California; NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California; the French space agency (CNES) in Paris; the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Cologne, Germany; and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in Tokyo. Dragonfly is the fourth mission in NASA's New Frontiers Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

Learn more about the mission at www.nasa.gov/dragonfly.

Last Updated: Mar 24, 2023
Editor: Tricia Talbert
Tags: Dragonfly, Moons, Solar System, Titan
 
Damn, I was not expecting that Flyaway, due to budget uncertainty Dragonfly's launch is getting pushed back a year. Let's see if NASA can get the issue sorted before next year. :mad:
 

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