NASA's Dragonfly drone to explore Saturn’s icy moon, Titan

The drone which has eight rotors will take advantage of Titan’s dense atmosphere – four times denser than Earth’s – to become the first vehicle ever to fly its entire science payload to new places for repeatable and targeted access to surface materials.

The mission will launch in 2026 and arrive in 2034 and will fly a number of sorties exploring environments ranging from organic dunes to the floor of an impact crater where liquid water and complex organic materials that are key to life once existed, possibly tens of thousands of years ago.

Titan is of huge interest to scientists because its abundant organic material and dense atmosphere, which supports an Earth-like hydrological cycle of methane, clouds, rain and liquid flowing across the surface to fill lakes and seas. Scientists hope that studying the surface in more detail could advance our understanding of how life evolved on earth and even detect signs of past or existing life on Titan itself.