There’s so much happening by way of Martian exploration that it can be easy to forget all the other missions that are being deployed elsewhere in the solar system. Perhaps one of the most intriguing of those will be Dragonfly, a NASA-esque mission that intends to explore Titan – the largest of Saturn’s many moons.
While most missions in the past have used either landers, rovers, or satellites to explore another world’s surface, the Dragonfly mission will be quite a bit more unique in that it will deploy a flying quadcopter-style spacecraft on Titan. As you might come to expect, this quadcopter will be capable of flying from one sampling zone to another in an agile manner.
The Dragonfly spacecraft will be equipped with high-tech science equipment, including a pneumatic sample extraction system that will transfer surface samples form Titan into an onboard testing chamber where it will be analyzed with a mass spectrometer for better insight into its composition.
Dragonfly will play an instrumental part in determining whether Titan has what it takes to be habitable. While it may be doubtful at first glance, some scientists believe that Titan sports life-supporting chemicals.
It should be interesting to see what Dragonfly will find when it finally arrives at Titan.