Episode notes
Scheduled to launch in 2027, Dragonfly will be the first spacecraft to fly on Saturn’s moon, Titan. Data from Cassini-Huygens revealed evidence of a subsurface ocean, made of water and ammonia, as well as stable bodies of liquid hydrocarbons on the surface. This makes Titan the only other body in our solar system with a stable liquid source on its surface. These features make it an incredibly valuable place to study in humanity’s search for life beyond Earth.
As Dragonfly is also a rotorcraft and must operate autonomously on Titan, there are many interesting engineering challenges that come with this mission as aerodynamics and flight controls are thrown into the mix, along with everything else we must account for in a spacecraft.
In this episode, I chat with Dr. Jack Lagelaan, who is part of a team of engineers from Penn State Uni ...
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