NASA’s Dragonfly Robot to Soar on Titan After Passing Design Review

SPACE — Before flying its revolutionary rotorcraft over the organic sand dunes of Saturn’s moon Titan, NASA’s Dragonfly mission team needed to conduct a series of independent reviews to show the flight project was on track. Led by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, the team has passed a major milestone by successfully passing all technical requirements and standards in the Preliminary Design Review (PDR) during the week leading up to March 3, 2023.

“I am incredibly proud of the entire Dragonfly team,” said APL Space Exploration Sector chief Bobby Braun as quoted by NASA’s official website on Friday, March 24, 2023.

“APL, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Lockheed Martin and all of our partners really come together to provide a credible technical foundation. The loyalty and thought that goes into every decision is communicated clearly and forms a solid foundation upon which to build the team.”

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PDR – a requirement for all NASA missions – covers topics such as spacecraft design, mission requirements, science plans, timelines, costs and risks. Held at APL which manages the mission as well as builds and operates the Dragonfly lander, the PDR included more than 60 presentations to a panel of external experts tasked with evaluating and assessing mission progress for NASA.

“I’m excited to see all the components of the Dragonfly mission design come together,” said Lori Glaze, director of the Planetary Sciences Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

“The mission team’s hard work has resulted in a technical design of a spacecraft that can do exciting science to enhance our understanding of Titan.”

NASA will consider the board’s findings in a confirmation review later this year. Then, check out Dragonfly’s fees, schedules, and recommended starting plans going forward.

“The team did an amazing job,” said APL’s Dragonfly Principal Investigator, Zibi Turtle.

Turtle said everyone on the team worked very hard to ensure the review board had a clear idea of ​​the project. This means not only about the great progress the team has made towards finalizing the design, but also about the technical challenges ahead, and how the team plans to overcome them.

“We are delighted to have completed this step, and ready to continue our work on the next phase of Dragonfly development, including testing in the large Titan-environment space at APL over the next year.”

Dragonfly centers on a game-changing approach to planetary exploration. It will use a lander rotorcraft to travel between sites on the mysterious world of Titan, as well as retrieve samples. Read: Dragonfly will Reveal the Origin of Life Through Titan.

Dragonfly will characterize the habitability of Titan’s environment and investigate the development of prebiotic chemistry, where carbon-rich materials and liquid water may have mixed for a long time. He will also look for chemical indications as to whether water-based or hydrocarbon-based life once existed on Titan.

Dragonfly is being designed and built under the direction of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. After all, Dragonfly is the fourth mission in NASA’s New Frontiers Program in the long term.

Joined team:

– NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland

– Lockheed Martin Space di Littleton, Colorado

– NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California

– NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia

– Penn State University of State College, Pennsylvania

– Malin Space Science Systems di San Diego, California

– Honeybee Robotics di Pasadena, California

– NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California

– French space agency (CNES) in Paris

– German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Cologne, Germany

– Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) di Tokyo.