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NASA Advances Missions To Land a Flying Robot on Titan or Snatch a Piece of a Comet (washingtonpost.com)
Sarah Kaplan, writing for the Washington Post: NASA's newest mission will either land a quadcopter-like spacecraft on the surface of Saturn's moon Titan or collect a sample from the nucleus of a comet. (Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source.) The two proposals were selected from a group of 12 submitted to the New Frontiers program, which supports mid-level planetary science missions. The first, called Dragonfly, would be an unprecedented project to send a flying robot to an alien moon. Equipped with instruments capable of identifying large organic molecules, the quadcopter would be able to fly to multiple locations hundreds of miles apart to study the landscape on Titan. This large, cold moon of Saturn features a thick atmosphere and lakes and rivers of liquid methane, and scientists believe that a watery ocean may lurk beneath its frozen crust. [...] The Comet Astrobiology Exploration SAmple Return, or CAESAR, mission would circle back to the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, which was visited by the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft from 2014 to 2016. After rendezvousing with the Mount Fuji-size space rock, CAESAR would suck up a sample from its surface and send it back to Earth, where it would arrive in November 2038 (mark your calendars!).
It would allow it to land on the (very still) "waters" of the oceans and lakes of Titan!
Then, with its existing instrument suite or perhaps another or two, it could directly measure the characteristics of the liquids on the only other body in the solar system known to have liquids on its surface.
Perhaps a simple acoustic sounder could make depth measurements? A camera, able to "see" in wavelengths transparent to the liquid (methane?) could take undermethane photos? (Remember to correct for the different refraction index of methane!).
Wow, just wow. Of course that's assuming there's no "Titanic" Kraken that'll gobble it up. But that would be the same as what the project investigator said about trees on Titan: "... the cameras will, during the descent, hopefully prevent to octo-copter from crashing into a tree. But if it does crash into a tree, we win! :)" (because the camera will presumably be transmitting live pictures).
Pontoons (should be) pretty light so hopefully mass isn't a problem. If volume is a problem, make them "inflatable" (of course this adds risk and complexity though).
*I think it's an octo-copter with 8 rotors around 4 hubs.
While the comet mission is certainly worthy, Titan is is the most Earth-like body in the solar system, except for temperature. It has a thick atmosphere of mostly nitrogen. It has a complex "hydrological" cycle with methane as the analog to water. There are surface lakes, rivers, and seas of liquid methane and ethane. The Cassini-Huygens mission detected extremely complex hydrocarbons in the atmosphere. All of this makes Titan a really interesting place to look for life. If it's there, it will likely be Very Different from life as we know it.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
>where it would arrive in November 2038 (mark your calendars!).
Everybody knows the end of the world is January 19, 2038 as was foretold in 1970.
if it can do that, make it snatch some PUSSY! Cuz I like snatching pussy all the time.
If flying a doggone dual quadcopter around on M-Fing Titan doesn't get your inner geek feeling some utterly unwholesome things, then somethin' wrong with ya.
They NEED to do that. I don't care how risky it is. I don't care if they have to launch 3 of them to have a shot at one working.
This mission must happen.
Both these missions would get to the meat in the 2030's. 2034 for Titan, and 2038 for the sample return, if neither slips.
I have a modest shot at being alive in 2034 (will be 77), and a smaller shot in 2038.
Space exploration has too much damn latency.
(it's me again, I wrote the "Pontoons comment above)
I should remind Slashdot readers that we already have a cometary probe planned, funded and soon to be launched I think: OSIRIS-rex. While I really like comets and would love to get samples back, we've (sort of) been there done that.
In a more perfect world where we didn't just raise our deficit 1.5Trillion dollars to give tax cuts to corporations (and their wealthy owners), we'd be doing both but until China gets their act together, we (and to a lesser extent the Europeans and Japanese) are the only ones doing any exploring of the solar system.
(While we're dreaming, a submersible probe to Titan would also be cool. By the way, ARE there any short wavelengths that would be transparent to the hydrocarbon seas of Titan? Otherwise, just sonar.)
It's like a public job program for Autists.
For those who want the direct link to the NASA release:
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-invests-in-concept-development-for-missions-to-comet-saturn-moon-titan
I don't know if there's a page for the comet sample return mission, but Dragonfly has a page (with video) here: http://dragonfly.jhuapl.edu/
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Tell Elon Musk he can't do it.
Comets, and indeed Titan, are just liberal SJW bullshit. NASA is a big waste of money. That's why Trumpski doesn't fund it.
with lots of high def video!
What kind of stupid imbecile doesn't like a tax cut?
You want help NASA, spend 1% less on stupid military and obama's ISIS.
There is a nice layer of atmosphere that has a comfortable temperature on... err above Venus. Why have cities when you can have floating cloud cities? :)
My thought exactly!
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20030022668.pdf
http://www.geoffreylandis.com