NASA Dragonfly mission will explore Saturn's largest moon Titan

NASA's Dragonfly mission will search for the signs of "the building blocks of life" on Titan, Saturn's largest moon

NASA is planning a new mission, codenamed Dragonfly, to explore Saturn ' s largest moon Titan to search for the signs of "the building blocks of life".

The mission will launch in 2026 and will arrive at Titan in 2034.

Dragonfly is a Mars rover-sized drone that will be able to fly from place to place on Titan

Titan is the second largest natural satellite in the solar system, and even bigger than Mercury, the planet closest to the Sun. Due to its distance from the Sun (about 1,435 million kilometres), it is very cold, with surface temperature of about -179 degrees Celsius.

It is characterised by a nitrogen-based atmosphere, and also features clouds and methane rain.

While Titan is icy it is also similar to Earth in a number of ways. The data collected by the Cassini mission suggests that this "richly, organic world" contains some of the ingredients that are required for the emergence of life.

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Dragonfly is the latest space mission announced under NASA ' s New Frontiers programme.

"Dragonfly is a Mars rover-sized drone that will be able to fly from place to place on Titan," said Elizabeth Turtle, the lead investigator of Dragonfly mission.

The flying rotorcraft will have capabilities to touch down in multiple locations, ranging from dunes to the floor of a known impact crater on Titan. It will be three metres long and three metres wide, and will feature rotors that that will enable it to soar across Titan ' s surface at a rate of 12-14 kilometres an hour.

Dragonfly will visit a world filled with a wide variety of organic compounds, which are the building blocks of life

The craft will make a hop about once every 16 days, although it will also make shorter hops of a few feet in case scientists detect something interesting in close vicinity. In total, it will cover more than 175 kilometres of Titan's surface during its mission, according to NASA.

Initially, the Dragonfly mission is expected to last just under three years. During that time, it will explore multiple sites across Saturn ' s moon, including the Shangri-La dune field and Selk impact crater.

The spacecraft will carry with it multiple scientific instruments that will enable it to measure soil samples and to search for signs of past or existing life on Titan. The quadcopter will also collect soil samples at different sites across the moon ' s surface.

"It ' s remarkable to think of this rotorcraft flying miles and miles across the organic sand dunes of Saturn ' s largest moon, exploring the processes that shape this extraordinary environment," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for Science at the NASA's Headquarters in Washington.

"Dragonfly will visit a world filled with a wide variety of organic compounds, which are the building blocks of life and could teach us about the origin of life itself."

"Titan is unlike any other place in the solar system, and Dragonfly is like no other mission."

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