NASA’s Dragonfly Drone: Exploring Life on Saturn’s Moon Titan

Jakarta –

NASA plans to launch an aerial drone the size of a nuclear-powered car called Dragonfly to explore life on the largest satellite or moon of the planet Saturn, namely Titan.

However, before doing so, NASA conducted tests first to ensure that Dragonfly could survive conditions like the lunar environment, as reported by Space.

Dragonfly Launch

This Dragonfly launch aims to study the complex chemistry on Titan which can add insight into the origins of life in this solar system. The drone is equipped with cameras, sensors and samplers to investigate areas of Titan that are known to contain organic materials.

The lander will later traverse Titan’s atmosphere using four dual coaxial rotors. The rotor was tested by a team at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. Tests were carried out by operating drone rotors in a wind tunnel to simulate atmospheric conditions on Titan.

“All of this testing feeds into the simulation and prediction of Dragonfly Titan performance,” said Ken Hibbard, Dragonfly mission systems engineer at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in NASA’s Dragonfly Tunnel Visions article on the NASA website.

Drone Testing

The Dragonfly test has been carried out four times, namely twice in a 14 by 22 subsonic tunnel. The test is used to validate fluid dynamics models developed by scientists.

Meanwhile, the other two tests were in the 16 foot Transonic Dynamic Tunnel (TDT). This test was used to validate computer models in simulating the atmospheric conditions Dragonfly might encounter on Titan.

Bernadine Juliano, APL testing leader, stated that the latest test was carried out in June involving a half-scale Dragonfly model with hundreds of trials.

“We tested conditions throughout the expected flight range at various wind speeds, rotor speeds and flight angles to assess the vehicle’s aerodynamic performance,” explains Juliano.

“We completed more than 700 total runs, covering more than 4000 individual data points. All test objectives were successfully achieved and the data will help increase confidence in our simulation models on Earth before extrapolating to Titan conditions,” he added.

This analysis was carried out collaboratively with specialists from various institutions, such as the University of Central Florida to NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. Then Rick Heisler from APL supervised the TDT testing.

“The heavy gas environment in TDT has a density three and a half times higher than air when operating at ambient pressure and temperature at sea level,” Heisler said.

“This allows the rotor to operate in conditions near Titan and mimic the lift forces and dynamic loading that a real lander would experience,” he said again.

“With Dragonfly, we can turn science fiction into exploration fact. These missions are progressing one step at a time and we are excited for each next step in sending this revolutionary helicopter across the skies and surface of Titan,” said Hibbard.

Watch the video “NASA’s small box produces oxygen on Mars”

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2023-11-02 12:30:09
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