In July 2028 NASA launches Dragonfly, a 1,000-pound nuclear rotorcraft, on a six-year, $3.35 billion journey to Saturn's moon Titan. Its eight rotors exploit air four times denser than Earth's and one-seventh the gravity — so it hops between sites a rover would need months to reach, hunting the chemistry that came before life.
The upcoming Dragonfly mission is unlike any planetary mission NASA has ever attempted. Instead of another slow-moving rover, like Curiosity or Perseverance, Dragonfly is a car-sized nuclear-powered drone designed to fly across the surface of Saturn’... [4433 chars]