NASA has approved the Dragonfly spacecraft mission to Saturn’s moon, Titan, with plans to launch the spacecraft from Earth in July 2028. Titan is Saturn’s largest moon and the only moon with an Earth-like atmosphere. The presence of water on Titan, in the form of ice (due to surface temperatures around -180 degrees Celsius), has intrigued scientists for a long time. The moon has previously been explored by the Huygens spacecraft in 2005, but technical issues limited data transmission to just 72 minutes, preventing detailed exploration.
In a renewed effort to explore Titan, NASA’s Dragonfly mission will deploy a larger-than-life, unmanned rotorcraft (larger than the Ingenuity helicopter sent to Mars by 200 times) to fly and explore the moon for a duration of three years. The mission was proposed in 2017 under NASA’s New Frontiers program for long-distance space exploration and was selected by NASA in 2019. However, it has faced multiple delays due to budget constraints. NASA has now secured a budget of $3.35 billion from Congress for the mission.
Dragonfly is scheduled to depart Earth in July 2028 and arrive at Titan in 2034.
TLDR: NASA approved the Dragonfly mission to explore Saturn’s moon Titan, set to launch in July 2028 with the spacecraft reaching Titan in 2034.
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