Flying over TITAN

Ezzy Pearson reports on NASA's Dragonfly, the first-ever science mission to fly on another world, which is set to soar over Saturn's largest moon in search of the elements of life

- Ezzy Pearson

Titan, Saturn's largest moon, is a contradiction: a world that's remarkably Earth-like and profoundly alien at the same time.

Like our own planet, the moon has a nitrogen-dominated atmosphere over a landscape of mountains, deserts and even seas. Only on Titan, the mountains aren't made from rock, but ice. And rather than water, in its rivers flows liquid methane.

Most captivating of all, the moon is rich with the organic chemicals that form the foundations of life on Earth. All this makes Titan an ideal place to investigate the evolution of the chemistry that makes our planet, and perhaps others too, habitable.

In April this year, NASA confirmed that it intends to send the Dragonfly mission on its way to the mysterious moon in July 2028. When it arrives in 2034, the spacecraft won't just roam on the moon's surface, it will also soar above it. Dragonfly will live up to its name, becoming the first-ever full science mission capable of flight in another world's atmosphere.

"Dragonfly is an octocopter - with four pairs of rotors - that will traverse to different sites on Titan by flying from place to place," says Zibi Turtle from Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and principal investigator of Dragonfly.

During its mission, Dragonfly will cover hundreds of kilometres. It will start its journey in the Shangri-La dune field, a desert just south of Titan's equator.

From here it will hop from dune to dune, exploring a variety of landscapes and eventually making its way to the 80kmwide (50-mile) Selk impact crater.

Chemical quest

The spacecraft's mobility will allow it to reach the best spots to study Titan's unique chemistry. On Titan, methane serves a similar role to water on Earth methane clouds fill the sky, pouring down methane rain into methane-filled lakes and rivers. It also serves as the starting point for much more complex molecules.