NASA has confirmed the mission of the Dragonfly rotorcraft to Saturn’s moon Titan, allowing the mission to advance to the completion of the final design phase.
NASA said Tuesday the mission was confirmed a year after the mission team passed all the technical requirements and standards of the preliminary design review.
The Dragonfly spacecraft will have eight rotors and is expected to arrive at Titan in 2034 to look for prebiotic chemical processes on Saturn’s moon.
“Dragonfly is a spectacular science mission with broad community interest, and we are excited to take the next steps on this mission,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Exploring Titan will push the boundaries of what we can do with rotorcraft outside of Earth.”
The Dragonfly mission is the fourth mission under NASA’s New Frontiers Program and will have a total lifecycle cost of about $3.35 billion and is expected to launch by July 2028.
The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory oversees the design and development of Dragonfly.
Aside from research centers within NASA, APL’s partners in the mission are Lockheed Martin, Malin Space Science Systems, Honeybee Robotics, Penn State University and space agencies in Germany, France and Japan.
