A robotic helicopter named Dragonfly will become a companion to Saturn’s moon Titan, which NASA has likened to a second Earth.
According to SciTech Daily, Dragonfly is set to depart from Earth in 2027 and is expected to reach the extraterrestrial version of Earth—Titan—by 2030.
Shaped like a helicopter, Dragonfly is a lander spacecraft and a type of robot capable of autonomously performing various functions. NASA clearly states: It will be a spacecraft hunting for extraterrestrial life, or at least seeking to discover the precursors of life that may be forming on this mysterious moon.
“Portrait” of the Dragonfly spacecraft, NASA’s new extraterrestrial life hunter – (Image: NASA).
This mission will help scientists clarify what happened on ancient Earth that allowed life to emerge—a captivating sequence of reactions known as prebiotic chemistry.
The complex, carbon-rich chemical composition, subsurface oceans, and intriguing surface features resembling Earth make Titan a “promised land” for NASA, alongside other moons like Jupiter’s Europa and Saturn’s Enceladus.
This NASA exploration robot will carry a Dragonfly Mass Spectrometer (DraMS), designed to bridge the gap with Earth scientists, enabling them to remotely study Titan’s surface.
“We want to know if the types of chemistry that could be important for early prebiotic systems on Earth are also occurring on Titan,” said Dr. Melissa Trainer from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
DraMS will scan Titan’s surfaces to discover what it needs to explore. To transport DraMS to various locations, the spacecraft will activate its rotors and fly short distances of a few miles, which is well-suited to Titan’s low gravity and dense atmosphere.
Collected samples will be zapped with lasers and analyzed for volatiles right in DraMS’s mini “laboratory,” then sent back to Earth.
DraMS and other undisclosed tools that Dragonfly will carry are being designed and built under the leadership of the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University in Laurel, Maryland, which manages NASA’s Dragonfly mission.
The French space agency (CNES) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will also accompany NASA and other American partners in this mission.
