Dragonfly
NASA rotorcraft mission to Saturn's moon Titan, to fly between sites and study the chemistry that came before life; launch no earlier than July 2028.
Dragonfly is a NASA mission to Saturn's largest moon, Titan, built around a rotorcraft: the first of its kind designed to fly on another world.[1] It is to fly to a variety of locations on Titan to investigate how habitable the moon's environment is.[1]
The mission
Dragonfly is scheduled to launch no earlier than July 2028 and to reach Titan in late 2034.[1] Instead of staying near one landing site, its rotors are to carry it for miles across Titan during a planned mission of 3.3 years.[1] It will travel several miles on each flight through Titan's hazy, nitrogen-rich atmosphere, stopping at geologically interesting sites to collect samples of surface material and analyze them with instruments inside the rotorcraft.[1]
Why Titan
Dragonfly is not designed to detect life. Its purpose is to study the chemistry that came before biology on Earth, which may be preserved on Titan.[1] Exploring many different places will help characterize how suitable Titan's environment could be for life.[1]
The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory designs and builds Dragonfly and manages the mission for NASA.[1] Other missions to the outer solar system include Europa Clipper and New Horizons.
Milestones
- July 2028 expectedLaunch on Falcon Heavy
- In 2034 expectedArrives at Titan
Dates marked expected are agency estimates.
All missions and what each does nextSources
- [1]NASA, Dragonfly — science.nasa.gov, retrieved October 26, 2026
Related
- Europa ClipperNASA mission to Jupiter's moon Europa, to find out whether the ocean beneath its ice could support life; arrival at Jupiter is planned for April 2030.
- New HorizonsNASA mission that made the first close study of Pluto in 2015 and flew past Arrokoth, the most distant object explored up close, in 2019.