A spacecraft has never touched down on the surface of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, but researchers at the University of Idaho Department of Physics are looking to change that with the proposal of a new spacecraft.
Since joining other Titan researchers in 2004, Jason Barnes, a UI physics professor and researcher, has collected a plethora of data and information about Saturn’s moon.
The year Barnes began his research, he said the Cassini-Huygens unmanned spacecraft, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), entered orbit around Saturn.
Since then, Barnes said he has received about $2.5 million in NASA grant money to fund various aspects of his research.
“It was just some research that I could really sink my teeth into,” Barnes said.
Although the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft is meant to gather information on Saturn, Barnes said its orbit passes around Titan every 16 days to one month, generating data for Titan researchers as well.
Barnes said the Cassini-Huygens was fitted with a radar to penetrate the thick haze that constitutes Titan’s atmosphere — the only moon in the galaxy with an atmosphere.
“Imagine the smog in LA where it’s hard to see any sort of long distance,” Barnes said. “Titan is the same way, so we can’t actually see its surface.”
Barnes said he utilizes a near infrared spectrometer, a device that uses wavelengths to produce images, to see through Titan’s dense atmosphere.
Shannon MacKenzie, a UI Ph.D. candidate, said she began working with Barnes on Titan research five years ago.
She said even though the topography of Titan is similar to Earth’s topography, with sand dunes, volcanoes and water bodies, the geographic structures on Titan are comprised of different substances.
Mackenzie said the lake beds on Titan, which are typically empty, are occupied by liquid methane. She said methane is a gas on Earth, but flows freely as a liquid on Titan.
While photographs from the Cassini-Huygens’ orbit have produced a large amount of unprecedented information on Titan, Barnes said a grounded spacecraft on Titan would gather much better results.
Without the use of a spacecraft sitting on Titan, Barnes said he is attempting to change the way scientists research the moon by proposing a grounded spacecraft.
Barnes said he and MacKenzie are proposing spacecraft that will fly to Titan, which will land and move around on the surface. Aptly named the “Dragonfly,” Barnes said the proposed spacecraft will be able to jump up to 50 km and relocate itself on Titan’s surface, while picking up images and data from all sections of the moon’s geography.
“This is a medium-sized NASA mission,” Barnes said. “It would allow us to take samples, photos and measurements.”
MacKenzie said they began working on the proposal in early 2016, and project that roughly 15 other research teams across the nation have done the same. The 200-page proposal document, which must be submitted to NASA by April 28, will cover everything from past research, select questions, engineering plans, budget information and future flight paths.
She said the spacecraft will be no larger than the average office desk, and must be produced within a $1 billion budget.
“It takes a lot of planning and going back and forth to propose and create a rather small spacecraft like the Dragonfly,” MacKenzie said.
The process of obtaining approval for the proposal is just as complicated as the planning process, MacKenzie said. By fall 2017, MacKenzie said they should know if their proposal made it through to a second round of NASA examination, and from there they may have to wait an additional year before hearing the final results.
If chosen, Barnes said the Dragonfly would hypothetically launch in 2025 and land on Titan in 2034. He said the spacecraft would explore Titan’s surface for two to three years before returning to Earth.
“It’s got to work the first time,” Barnes said. “You can’t just send someone up there to fix the system or screw in a bolt if something goes wrong.”
Chase Chivers, a UI senior and Titan researcher, said with satellite technology they can see photos of Titan that researchers could have never imagined. But with a spacecraft like Dragonfly, he said the possibilities for learning are almost endless.
“Titan is essentially a bizarre earth, just made of hydrocarbons and ice rather than dirt and rock,” Chivers said. “Through studying Titan, we can better understand our Earth.”
However, Barnes said it is going to take some time to fully understand all that Titan has to offer to science.
“It is going to take a while, but when it comes to outer space, you have to think ahead,” Barnes said. “The goal is to get a new spacecraft to Titan before I die, so fingers crossed.”
Hailey Stewart can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter at @Hailey_ann97