NASA announces lander mission to Saturn’s moon Titan

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine announced Thursday that the agency would send a rotorcraft lander to Saturn’s largest moon, Titan.

“Our next New Frontiers mission, Dragonfly, will explore Saturn’s largest moon, Titan,” he said in a video posted to Twitter.

Bridenstine noted that Titan is the place in the solar system most comparable to early Earth.{mosads}

He added that the mission will help NASA to investigate Titan’s organic chemistry, evaluate its habitability and search for chemical signatures of past or present life there.

The NASA chief said that Dragonfly is the first drone lander capable of flying through Titan’s thick atmosphere.

“We will launch Dragonfly to explore the frontiers of human knowledge for the benefit for all humanity,” he said in the video.

BIG NEWS: The next @NASASolarSystem mission is… #Dragonfly – a rotorcraft lander mission to Saturn’s largest moon Titan. This ocean world is the only moon in our solar system with a dense atmosphere & we’re so excited to see what Dragonfly discovers: https://t.co/whePqbuGBq pic.twitter.com/BQdMhSZfgP

— Jim Bridenstine (@JimBridenstine) June 27, 2019

Dragonfly is expected to launch in 2026 and will be developed and spearheaded by the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University in Laurel, Md., according to The New York Times.