Dragonfly's in Orbit Around Saturn

While we may have said goodbye to Saturn on September 15th 2017 with Cassini’s final kiss as she plunged head first into the atmosphere before loosing contact with earth and no doubt shortly after exploding and breaking apart, it may have been but a lovers kiss goodbye for a few days with consideration to the newly proposed Titan Dragonfly mission as part of NASA’s new frontiers missions that would have its sights set on sending a flying rotorcraft lander to Saturn’s moon Titan, to pick up work where Cassini’s Huygens probe left off in 2005…

Spearheaded by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory after its conception over a dinner between Jason W. Barnes (Department of Physics, University of Idaho) and Ralph D. Lorenz (Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory) and taking 15 months to develop into a full mission proposal, with the principle scientific investigator Elizabeth Turtle (Planetary Scientist – Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory) being at the forefront, would see a flying mobile rotorcraft send to Saturn’s largest moon Titan.

With the intent of studying prebiotic chemistry and potential for extraterrestrial habitability at various locations through complex analysis of terrain through vertical take offs and landings, Titan is a unique place in our solar system with an abundantly rich and complex carbon rich chemistry on its surface, with its diverse surface and inner water ocean making it a excellent location for both astrobiology and origin of life studies, in what in grand scheme of things at a solar level, is really our own back yard.

While not yet an absolute certainty that this project will go ahead, it did make the list as one of the two finalists in in the NASA new frontiers mission proposals in December 2017, with further consideration to refine the mission project, I for one would like to think and hope, this mission is selected, if for no other reason than to give us another way to continue to study the Saturnian system, which in my opinion we should have had something in place to arrive before Cassini’s end.

I am of the position, that if we are studying any part of our solar system, we should not abandon our studies, but rather continue them, and have something in orbit around these planets at all times, but that’s just me, yes it was expensive in the past, but with the advent of re-usable rockets and CubeSats I see no reason why solar system space research cant continue on a shoestring budget, but, back to Dragonfly…

Dragonfly would be a rotorcraft lander, kind of like a large quadcopter with double rotors here on earth, this configuration would allow it to survive the hypothetical loss of at least one rotor and still allow it to traverse the airspace of Titan, still being able to reach speeds of 10 m/s or 36 km/m at altitudes up to 4 km.

It would actually be easier for this craft to fly on Titan as opposed to Earth as Titan is 38 times less than the mass of earth meaning the gravity is far weaker, the only things to take into consideration would be the temperature which is significantly colder to say the less, as is the visible light, all the same powered by a Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG) during the night, converting the heat of the natural decay of the radioisotope into electricity could see this craft in service for quite some time, long after the projected mission scope of 2 years.

The Saturnian System is by far, one of my favorites, and I really think we could learn a lot from this mission so I personally hope it gets the green light, my only suggestion to the project would be, if your going to send something this far out, knowing it will take a decade to reach the destination, why not send with it a cheap CubeSat to deploy so we once again have a satellite around Saturn? Ok, basic instruments for sure, but at least then we have something there again, for the price of a CubeSat, why not?

What do you think? Should we return to Saturn?