Mission Dragon Fly – PDF Download

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• Cassini: Saturn orbiter
• Hugens: Titan lander

Cassini–Huygens

• Collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) to send a probe to study the planet Saturn and its system, including its rings and natural satellites.

SATURN

• Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant. Known satellites – 62 with formal designations; innumerable additional moonlets.
•  Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, and the second-largest in the Solar System, is larger than the planet Mercury, although less massive, and is the only moon in the Solar System to have a substantial atmosphere.

LARGEST MOON IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM?

• Ganymede, a satellite of Jupiter , is the largest and most massive of the Solar System’s moons. The ninth largest object in the Solar System, it is the largest without a substantial atmosphere.

NASA’S CASSINI SPACECRAFT

• Data from NASA’s Cassini-Huygens spacecraft reveal new information about the lakes on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon.
•  The small liquid lakes in Titan’s northern hemisphere are more than 100 meters deep, perched atop plateaus and filled with methane. They also appear to be seasonal. And the bodies of liquid on one side of the northern hemisphere are completely different than those on the other side.

DRAGONFLY MISSION

• Titan, a moon around the planet Saturn, has the right materials for life, NASA research has shown. The US space agency’s newly announced Dragonfly mission will explore the icy space object to learn if it ever did hold life.
• Titan is so cold that water is rock-hard ice, and oily methane falls from the sky and into the seas. The beaches are different too. Titan’s sand is made up of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen

DRAGONFLY DRONE MISSION

• Dragonfly is built like a helicopter, able to take short flights in between landings. It will run on what’s called a radioisotope thermoelectric generator, or RTG.
• A radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG, RITEG) is an electrical generator that uses an array of thermocouples to convert the heat released by the decay of a suitable radioactive material into electricity by the Seebeck effect.

RADIOACTIVE DECAY

• The RTG runs on radioactive decay from a reserve of plutonium-238. Which not only will power the spacecraft for months on end, but will also keep it warm.
•  You see, the average temperature on Titan is minus 179 degrees Celsius
• NASA plans to launch the spacecraft in 2026. When it will begin its EIGHT YEAR journey through the solar system toward Titan.
• So mark your calendars for 2034.

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