NASA Selects SpaceX To Launch Nuclear-Powered Dragonfly Mission To Titan

On 25 November, NASA revealed that it had selected SpaceX to launch the Dragonfly mission to Titan, Saturn’s mysterious largest moon. The mission, part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, has received a firm-fixed-price contract valued at approximately $256.6 million, covering the launch and other associated mission costs.

Dragonfly Mission Launch

Dragonfly is the fourth mission in NASA’s New Frontiers Program. It is managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and is part of the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

The mission will launch between 5 and 25 July 2028 aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Dragonfly Team

The Dragonfly team comprises diverse scientists, engineers, and experts in autonomous flight, rotorcraft technology, and space systems. The team members will bring decades of experience from previous missions exploring the solar system, from the Sun to Pluto. The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, manages the team. NASA’s Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center oversees the launch service for the mission.

Dragonfly Mission Goals

The rotorcraft lander will explore Saturn’s moon Titan, collecting samples and analysing the surface composition. With help from partners worldwide, Dragonfly’s instruments will study Titan’s environment to see if it could support life. Also, it will explore how prebiotic chemistry may have developed on Titan, where carbon-rich materials and liquid water could have mixed for a long time. Overall, the Dragonfly mission aims to find chemical signs of whether life-based on water or hydrocarbons might have existed on the moon.