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'Dragonfly' Mission to Saturn's Moon Titan: Behind Schedule, Overbudget, Says NASA Inspector General
After its six-year journey to Saturn's moon Titan, Dragonfly's rotorcraft lander "will fly like a large drone," explains its web page, spending three years sampling multiple landing sites to characterize Titan's habitability and look for "precursors of the origin of life." "However, the project has...
Justifications for these replans included the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain issues, changes to accommodate a heavy-lift launch vehicle, projected funding challenges, and inflation." Yet a NASA press release notes the mission " has cleared several key design, development and testing milestones and remains on track toward launch in July 2028." Its software-defined radio has been completed, and the part of the spectrometer which analyzes Titan's chemical components for "potentially biologically relevant" compounds (as well as structural and thermal testing of the lander's insulation).
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