Dragonfly: Investigating the Surface Composition of Titan

Trainer, M G ; Brinckerhoff, W B ; Freissinet, C ; Lawrence, D J ; Peplowski, P N ; Parsons, A M ; Zacny, K ; Turtle, E P ; Barnes, J W ; Lorenz, R D(Johns Hopkins Univ, Laurel, MD, United States)

关键词: ROTARY WING AIRCRAFT;    TITAN;    PLANETARY SURFACES;    PLANETARY COMPOSITION;    ORGANIC MATERIALS;    EXTRATERRESTRIAL WATER;    ABUNDANCE;    CHEMICAL ANALYSIS;    SAMPLING;    MISSION PLANNING;    SATURN SATELLITES;    SAMPLERS;    HABITABILITY;    SPACE EXPLORATION;    NASA SPACE PROGRAMS;   

RP-ID  :  GSFC-E-DAA-TN53846

学科分类：天文学(综合)

美国|英语

来源: NASA Technical Reports Server

【 摘 要 】

Dragonfly is a rotorcraft lander mission, selected as a finalist in NASA's New Frontiers Program, that is designed to sample materials and determine the surface composition in different geologic settings on Titan. This revolutionary mission concept would explore diverse locations to characterize the habitability of Titan's environment, to investigate how far prebiotic chemistry has progressed, and to search for chemical signatures that could be indicative of water-based and/or hydrocarbon-based life. Here we describe Dragonfly's capabilities to determine the composition of a variety of surface units on Titan, from elemental components to complex organic molecules. The compositional investigation ncludes characterization of local surface environments and finely sampled materials. The Dragonfly flexible sampling approach can robustly accommodate materials from Titan's most intriguing surface environments.