NASA invites public names for Dragonfly mission to Saturn moon Titan

Popular Science reported that NASA has launched its Journey to Titan campaign, which allows members of the public to submit their names to be carried aboard the Dragonfly spacecraft. The submitted names will be etched onto a microchip that will fly with the uncrewed mission to Saturn's largest moon. Participants receive a digital boarding pass confirming their entry. [1]

The Dragonfly mission is scheduled to launch no earlier than July 2028, according to Popular Science. The rotorcraft spacecraft is tasked with searching for the building blocks of life on Titan. It is expected to arrive at the ice-encased moon in 2034. [1]

Saturn is located at an average distance of 1.4 billion kilometers from the Sun and takes 29.4 Earth years to complete a single orbit. As FTMQ Space reported earlier, historical exploration of the Saturnian system dates back centuries, including astronomer Giovanni Cassini's discovery of the moon Iapetus in 1671. [3][4]

NASA previously used the Saturn V super heavy-lift rocket for its Apollo lunar missions and the launch of the Skylab space station between 1967 and 1973. Dragonfly represents the latest effort by the agency to explore the outer solar system. [1][2]