NASA to Search for Life on Titan

Despite the low temperature, Titan has an atmosphere similar to the Earth’s, and more importantly, it has water. These factors make Saturn’s biggest moon a very interesting research object.

Titan resembles the Earth in the early phases of its development, which means it may well have life on it. NASA scientists believe that it can be found in underground water bodies, where it is not as cold as on the surface, and have already announced their plans to do it as part of their Dragonfly program.

The mission will be launched by 2026. If there are no deviations from the plan, the spacecraft will reach Saturn’s moon in 2034. Due to Titan’s specific surface, tracked and wheeled vehicles cannot be used there. Therefore, it was decided to design a helicopter research craft named «Curiosity».

Curiosity is a 3.1 × 2.7 × 2.1 meter craft equipped with sliding stripes at the bottom, with have propellers on the sides, will be able to reach a height of 4 km kilometers and travel at a speed of up to 36 km/h. The helicopter will be able to cover up to 8 km at a time, and up to 175 km per day.

The main research object will be the Selk crater which may have surviving microorganisms that Curiosity will try to find.