Updates Dragonfly: NASA New Frontiers 4

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NASA's New Frontiers planetary missions are valued at about $1 billion dollars bucks USD each and the selection of the latest in this series is approaching. NASA will choose the winner in 2019, however two or three finalists will be selected later this year. Unlike the cheaper Discovery missions, New Frontiers spacecraft have their destinations preselected during the Decadal Survey (with possible changes). For New Frontiers 4, missions are allowed to visit six different destinations:

• Venus' atmosphere and surface
• Jupiter trojans
• Saturn's atmosphere
• A comet's surface for sample return
• Lunar south pole for sample return
• Ocean worlds Titan and Enceladus

The destinations of 11 of the 12 proposals are known, yet none of them will visit Jupiter trojans (may be due to Lucy). More information on each of the known missions is in the article linked below.

Future Planetary Exploration: "Proposed New Frontiers Missions"

This thread is for updates on the New Frontiers 4 mission prior to the final selection.

 

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There's an interesting video on the inspired Titan helicopter.

via

New York Times: "Back to Saturn? Five Missions Proposed to Follow Cassini"

 

[Keatah]

Why bother with Venus now? It's hot. We don't need another Saturn atmosphere probe, we just had one! Jupiter Trojans? For what.. Buncha rocks? Comet surface sample? Didn't they fly through a comet tail and collect particles that blew of the surface?

Ocean Worlds should be explored, and a Lunar sample from the poles, too, in preparation for a proper moonbase. The rest can wait till budget allows. And fer'chrissakes drop that mars crap. No one is going there for at least another 50-years.

 

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The remaining proposal is called the Venus Origins eXplorer, or VOX.

Future Planetary Exploration: "Venus Origins Explorer New Frontiers Proposal"

 

[Nicholas Kang]

And the finalists are here!

NASA: NASA Invests in Concept Development for Missions to Comet, Saturn Moon Titan

NASA has selected two finalist concepts for a robotic mission planned to launch in the mid-2020s: a comet sample return mission and a drone-like rotorcraft that would explore potential landing sites on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan.

The agency announced the concepts Wednesday, following an extensive and competitive peer review process. The concepts were chosen from 12 proposals submitted in April under a New Frontiers program announcement of opportunity.

“This is a giant leap forward in developing our next bold mission of science discovery,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “These are tantalizing investigations that seek to answer some of the biggest questions in our solar system today.”

The finalists are:

Comet Astrobiology Exploration Sample Return (CAESAR)

The CAESAR (Comet Astrobiology Exploration SAmple Return) mission will acquire a sample from the nucleus of comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, returning it safely to Earth. Comets are made up of materials from ancient stars, interstellar clouds, and the birth of our solar system. The CAESAR sample will reveal how these materials contributed to the early Earth, including the origins of the Earth's oceans, and of life. Credits: NASA

The CAESAR mission seeks to return a sample from 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, a comet that was successfully explored by the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft, to determine its origin and history. Led by Steve Squyres of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, CAESAR would be managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Dragonfly

Dragonfly is a dual-quadcopter lander that would take advantage of the environment on Titan to fly to multiple locations, some hundreds of miles apart, to sample materials and determine surface composition to investigate Titan's organic chemistry and habitability, monitor atmospheric and surface conditions, image landforms to investigate geological processes, and perform seismic studies. Credits: NASA

Dragonfly is a drone-like rotorcraft that would explore the prebiotic chemistry and habitability of dozens of sites on Saturn’s moon Titan, an ocean world in our solar system. Elizabeth Turtle from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, is the lead investigator, with APL providing project management.

The CAESAR and Dragonfly missions will receive funding through the end of 2018 to further develop and mature their concepts. NASA plans to select one of these investigations in the spring of 2019 to continue on to subsequent mission phases.

The selected mission will be the fourth in NASA’s New Frontiers portfolio, a series of principal investigator-led planetary science investigations that fall under a development cost cap of approximately $850 million. Its predecessors are the New Horizons mission to Pluto and a Kuiper Belt object known as 2014 MU69, the Juno mission to Jupiter, and OSIRIS-REx, which will rendezvous with and return a sample of the asteroid Bennu.

NASA also announced the selection of two mission concepts that will receive technology development funds to prepare them for future mission competitions.

The concepts selected for technology development are:

Enceladus Life Signatures and Habitability (ELSAH)

The ELSAH mission concept will receive funds to develop cost-effective techniques that limit spacecraft contamination and thereby enable life detection measurements on cost-capped missions. The principal investigator is Chris McKay of NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, and the managing NASA center is Goddard.

Venus In situ Composition Investigations (VICI)

Led by Lori Glaze at Goddard, the VICI mission concept will further develop the Venus Element and Mineralogy Camera to operate under the harsh conditions on Venus. The instrument uses lasers on a lander to measure the mineralogy and elemental composition of rocks on the surface of Venus.

The call for concepts was limited to six mission themes: comet surface sample return, lunar south pole-Aitken Basin sample return, ocean worlds (Titan and/or Enceladus), Saturn probe, Trojan asteroid tour and rendezvous, and Venus in situ explorer.

For more info, see here.

 

[MaverickSawyer]

Interesting. Squyers was the lead investigator on the MER mission, wasn't he? That makes him a known factor to NASA, so I'd be willing to put money on CAESAR getting the green light.

 

[RisingFury]

These are exciting finalists!

That being said, I have some doubts about the viability of the drone.

Flight on Titan is easy! With the high density of the atmosphere and low gravity, you don't need much to stay aloft, but a multirotor system is not very energy efficient. I'd give it wings for forward flight, so it lands vertically, then transitions to fixed wing flight.

There's still the issue of energy. You can't run on batteries alone. You need a way to replenish your stores. The drone does seem to feature an RTG.

 

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The Titan helicopter uses an MMRTG to recharge its batteries for each flight. As the plutonium decays, the only aspect of the mission affected is the time it takes to recharge. It's discussed in the video I linked above.

I prefer the Titan mission. Its mobility would let it survey a planetary body unlike any rover. I think comets and asteroids have got enough attention lately.

The Enceladus concept possibly uses solar panels. In that case, it would also need to spend a lot of time to recharge its batteries in between each flyby. The orbit may look something like this.

 

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Iterating on previous concepts to explore Titan following Cassini, Dragonfly was selected as the fourth New Frontiers mission.

NASA
Ars Technica
Spaceflight Now

 

[Artlav]

Arrival in 2030s, hm? 40 years after Cassini launch, and almost New Horizons away.

 

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- Dragonfly FAQ -

Q: When will the mission launch?
A: Launch is planned for 2026 and arrival in 2034. The prime mission will last over 2 years.

Q: How will Dragonfly reach Titan?
A: The launch vehicle will be chosen 3 years before launch and based on mission requirements. One Earth gravity assist is planned.

Q: Where will Dragonfly land?
A: The landing site will be in between equatorial dunes near Huygens to study organics that have been blown around by wind. Dragonfly will fly over 100 km to Selk crater where liquid water (cryolava) may have reached the surface. Arrival will be during the same time of the Titan year as Huygens, when winds are calm and it is dry, but Dragonfly can handle rain.

Q: How will Dragonfly study Titan?
A: There is a camera suite, a mass spectrometer that will determine the composition of solid samples, a gas chromatograph that can bake and analyze volatiles off solid samples first, a gamma ray and neutron spectrometer to look at surface composition while flying or landed (carrying its own source of neutrons since Titan's atmosphere blocks them), and a meteorology suite including a seismometer.

Q: Will Dragonfly be able to see Saturn in the sky?
A: Maybe a faint trace.

Q: What is after the prime mission?
A: The mission can be extended for up to 8 years on Titan, after which the decayed plutonium won't provide enough heat to keep the spacecraft warm enough. Also the batteries may take more than one Titan night (8 days) to recharge in between flights.

Read more at the website's resources, especially this pdf. My other source is the briefing, posted above.

 

[4throck]

Would like to see this for Orbiter 2016. Although the real thing won't be piloted in real time, it would be fun to try

The only downside with this mission is landing on the equatorial region. So we visit a desert when the special thing about Titan are the polar lakes. But I guess the scientists know best

 

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The composition of Titan's lakes is actually better understood than dry land. That being said, the team did once consider a flotation ring to allow landing in lakes, but presumably that is more risky. Dragonfly may be allowed to approach a lake during an extended mission; the spacecraft can fly tens of kilometers in a single charge which should allow a wide range of places to be explored. At the time of landing, it will be northern winter and the seas in darkness. The Titan Mare Explorer would have arrived years earlier and relied on a power source that was canceled due to austerity.

I should add that I'm not certain what the interplanetary trajectory of Dragonfly is. The teleconference only mentions Earth gravity assists but internet articles say a Venus flyby is included. Either way, NASA removed one Earth gravity assist, allowing the team to work on the spacecraft for an extra year and requiring a more powerful launch vehicle to reach Titan at the same time.

 

[4throck]

If the mission works, I'm sure they will launch the backup / engineering model to the polar regions.
It makes sense to await until the seasons change and the lander architecture is proven.

 

[N_Molson]

I like that one, flying something in such a remote and alien place such as Titan is quite bold and opens new possiblities in unmanned space exploration.

 

[Artlav]

So, what are their plans for when this thing inevitably flips over?