NASA Expects to Send Drone to Titan

NASA Thinks Titan, One Saturn's Moons, May Have Life. And What Better Way to Find Out than to Send in the Drones ? The Agency is Proposing to Send in a 22-Pound Quadrocopter Drone to Scour Titan for Traces of Life or Prebiotic Chemistry, after Images from NASA's Cassini Mission Showed All Sorts of Similarities to our Planets. The UAV would Land, Explore and Pick Up Samples (Maybe Flee from Rampaging Cylon-Type Warriors) and then Buzz Off Back to a Mothership, Somewhere in the Near Vicinity. So, What Sort of Drone are we Looking at ? Something More Sophisticated than the Parrot AR.Drone, for Sure. The Scientist Behind the Idea is Larrie Mathies, the Senior Research Scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and he has Dismissed the Other Options for Obvious Reasons. Landers are Stationary Once they've Plopped Down onto Titan's Surface. Aircraft or Balloons Can't Land on the Moon to Get the Samples and a Large, Long-Range Helicopter is Far Too Expensive for the Budgeting Agency to Commit to.


So, it's Obvious that, the Solution Starts with a D, Ends with an E and has RON in the Middle of it. "We propose a mission study of a small rotorcraft", Writes Mathies, "that can deploy from a balloon or lander to acquire close-up, high-resolution imagery and mapping data of the surface, land at multiple locations to acquire microscopic imagery and samples of solid and liquid material, return the samples to the mothership for analysis and recharge from an RTG on the mothership to enable multiple sorties". Saturn, of Course, has 62 Moons — and Birthed a New, Icy One Only Recently. Titan is by Far the Biggest. Like Earth, it has Seasons, plus Methane Cycles that are Similar to our Planet's Water Cycles and its Dominant Energy Source is Solar Radiation, despite the Fact that, it is Around 942 Million Miles Away from us. Its Lakes, which are Situated in the Moon's Northern Hemisphere (a Place Described by a Scientist as "one of the most Earth-like and intriguing in the solar system") were Revealed to Cassini after Sunlight Hit Titan for the 1st Time in Almost a Decade — which Means its Seasons are Damn Long.




Info Sources:

http://sploid.gizmodo.com/nasa-wants-to-send-a-quadcopter-drone-to-titan-along-wi-1593024773

https://www-robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/people/Larry_Matthies