Dragonfly: A Relocatable Rotorcraft Lander for the Exploration of Saturn’s Moon Titan
NASA’s 4th New Frontiers Mission is the Titan Dragonfly relocatable lander. This coaxial quadrotor vehicle will be launched on a rocket to Titan in 2028. Following a gravity assisted Earth flyby and an approximate 6-year transit, Dragonfly will enter the Titan atmosphere around 2034 with the goal of exploring Titan’s pre-biotic chemistry and habitability. The multirotor design for this unique application has continually evolved since 2016 with constraints such as Titan’s cryogenic atmosphere at 95 Kelvin (-288 F), gravity 14% that of Earth’s, atmospheric density 440% of standard sea-level air, and the inability to test the entire system together under all these conditions until the first flight on Titan. This talk will discuss some of the unique challenges for rotary wing operation on Titan and highlight some contributions of the NASA Ames Aeromechanics Office to Dragonfly.
Dr. Jason Cornelius is an aerospace engineer in the Aeromechanics Office at NASA Ames Research Center. His research interests are in rotorcraft design optimization with machine learning. Jason completed his PhD at Penn State University supporting the NASA Dragonfly mission, which he continues to support along with other NASA funded projects and initiatives.
Schedule
6:00 Doors open, networking
6:15 Food arrives
6:30 Presentation begins
7:15 Q&A
7:30 Event ends
(All times approximate)
Advance registration required! Refreshments (pizza, sandwiches, drinks) will be served at the presentation for paid attendees only. Food tickets must be purchased before noon on the event day.