NASA is planning to fly another high-profile science mission using SpaceX’s powerful Falcon Heavy rocket.
Today (Nov. 25), the ESA said it has selected the Falcon Heavy to launch Dragonfly, a $3.35 billion mission that will explore Titan, Saturn’s massive moon, for habitability. Additionally, the sturdy rocket launched NASA’s Europa Clipper mission and Psyche asteroid probe in October 2024 and October 2023, respectively.
In an update this afternoon, NASA officials stated that the Dragonfly contract is a nearly $257 million firm, fixed-price agreement that “includes launch services and other mission-related costs.”
Falcon Heavy plans to launch the car-sized Dragonfly rotorcraft in July 2028 during a three-week window, if all goes as planned. After then, the spacecraft will go to Titan, the solar system’s second-largest moon, for six years.
There are other fascinating aspects of Titan besides its size. The icy satellite is the only body known to have stable liquids on its surface outside of Earth, with lakes and seas of hydrocarbons. Furthermore, organic compounds—the carbon-based building blocks of life as we know it—are widely distributed across the earth.
Because of this, some scientists believe Titan might be able to support life, either on its extraterrestrial surface or in its alleged subsurface ocean of liquid water. Dragonfly is intended to answer this query and provide insight into a little-known field in general.
“With contributions from partners around the globe, Dragonfly’s scientific payload will characterize the habitability of Titan’s environment, investigate the progression of prebiotic chemistry on Titan, where carbon-rich material and liquid water may have mixed for an extended period, and search for chemical indications of whether water-based or hydrocarbon-based life once existed on Saturn’s moon,” according to NASA officials in today’s update.
The nuclear-powered rotorcraft will fly across Titan’s surface for almost 2.5 Earth years, stopping at various locations to acquire a close-up view of various landscapes.
The development of Dragonfly has been beset by setbacks and expense increases. For instance, when NASA first chose the mission in 2019, the launch was planned for 2027 and the project’s cost was limited to $1 billion.
Such problems are by no means exclusive to big exploration projects like Dragonfly. Additionally, the project has recently made great strides; earlier this year, NASA declared that it is still on pace to launch in 2028.
After NASA’s Space Launch System moon rocket, Falcon Heavy is the second-most powerful rocket in use today. To present, Falcon Heavy has launched eleven times, most recently on October 14 when it launched Europa Clipper toward Jupiter’s ocean moon Europa.