Experts from Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory make and process fuel, and fabricate and test components for the MMRTGs.Īlthough the specific electrical power output of the Dragonfly MMRTG depends upon a number of factors, the power source would not provide enough power on its own to enable flight from sample location to sample location, said Jason Barnes a professor of physics at the University of Idaho and Dragonfly deputy principal investigator. INL recently finished fueling the power source for the Mars 2020 Rover and will focus on Dragonfly’s MMRTG next. NASA has relied on radioisotope power systems to power its spacecraft and rovers for more than 50 years. MMRTGs turn the heat from the radioactive decay of plutonium-238 directly into electricity. The MMRTG would be fueled and tested at Idaho National Laboratory.
Fly dragonfly 2005 helicopter generator#
To power Dragonfly, NASA plans to use a Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG), the same power source used by the Curiosity rover on Mars. Dragonfly mission concept of entry, descent, landing, surface operations, and flight at Titan (Image credit Johns Hopkins APL). In between those flights, Dragonfly will take scientific measurements with instruments designed to detect the precursors of life. Using eight rotors, Dragonfly will fly over Titan’s alien landscape from location to location, akin to how a helicopter flies on Earth. Unlike the Mars rovers that drive around on the Red Planet’s surface, Dragonfly is a drone similar in size to a small car. “And possibly even conditions that may be able to harbor life today.” “We have on Titan the opportunity to observe the processes that were present on early Earth when life began to form,” Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s planetary science division, said on this video about the mission. Idaho’s national lab and its land-grant university are both contributing to the mission. Department of Energy national laboratories. Like Cassini, the Dragonfly spacecraft would use a radioisotope power system (RPS) provided by experts at U.S. In summer of 2019, NASA announced another mission to the surface of Titan: Dragonfly, which is scheduled for launch in 2026. Dragonfly (Image courtesy Johns Hopkins APL). Huygens and Cassini added volumes to what we know about Titan, including that the moon contains water and complex organic molecules-the basic ingredients of life-in abundance. 14, 2005, Cassini launched the Huygens probe, which parachuted down to Titan’s surface, giving humanity its first good glimpse of the moon’s terrain. Given its rocky core and thick atmosphere, scientists suspected that Titan might have striking similarities to Earth.Ĭassini confirmed those suspicions when, using its onboard radar, the spacecraft penetrated Titan’s thick nitrogen-methane atmosphere to find lakes, seas and rivers of liquid methane and ethane as well as mountains, hills, dunes and drainage channels. 17, 2017.Ĭassini also made dozens of flybys of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. During the 13 years Cassini studied Saturn, the spacecraft captured 453,048 images, discovered six new moons and completed 294 orbits, all before making its fiery final descent into the planet’s atmosphere on Sept.