'Dragonfly' Will Explore The World Of Saturn's Moon Titan

First Posted: Apr 28, 2017 06:00 AM EDT

NASA's Cassini spacecraft is nearing its final mission to the ringed planet Saturn. On the other hand, scientists are planning a follow-up mission to its moon Titan with the space lander called "Dragonfly."

Dragonfly is an eight-bladed whirlybird that will travel to the moon, Titan. It is empowered by a multimission radioisotope thermoelectric generator (MMRTG) that turns heat from degenerating plutonium-238 into electricity. Its energy will last for years or decades. The lander will investigate some of the potentially habitable sites of Titan, in which methane and ethane flow as lakes and rivers. These give an opportunity to search the places that could lead to life, according to NBC News.

A proposed mission to send a flying drone to Titan is being worked on, hopeing it wins the ticket in 2019.https://t.co/VRgW4ECA7S

— Aaron DeVries (@Aaron_M_DeVries) April 27, 2017

Elizabeth Turtle, the project's principal investigator and a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Research Laboratory in Maryland, said that it is such as the rich place to be able to discover in situ as it hands them the way to explore it. She further said that the atmosphere of Titan is what is providing them this ability to travel on the said Saturn moon.

Blasting News reports that Dragonfly will be categorized as a New Frontier mission that costs about $1 billion. Other New Frontier missions that are successful with their journey include the New Horizons. This spacecraft flies past the dwarf planet Pluto less than two years ago. Another New Frontier Mission is the Juno spacecraft, which is currently orbiting the gas giant planet Jupiter.

The Dragonfly could be part of the possible listing of New Frontier mission in November 2007. Its final selection will take place in July 2019.

If NASA is going to choose Dragonfly, it would be launched in the mid-2020s and could arrive in Saturn in the 2030s. Once it landed Saturn on a potential landing site, it will map several probable sites and then it goes back to its original spot to continue examining the moon.