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And now it’s down to two: Dragonfly and CAESAR.
Those are the finalists vying for a billion dollar space shot—and a place in NASA’s coveted New Frontiers program.
The agency announced the decision Wednesday at its Washington, D.C. headquarters.
To win the chance to send a robotic probe into space, Dragonfly and CAESAR beat out proposals from ten other science teams.
“This is a very tough competition,” says Jim Green, NASA's Planetary Science Division director. "And these are very exciting missions."
Dragonfly—a visual mashup of a drone and helicopter—would land on Titan, a mysterious moon of Saturn that might harbor life.
“Titan is a unique ocean world,” says Elizabeth Turtle, Dragonfly’s lead investigator, “with lakes and rivers of liquid methane flowing across its surface.”
That, along with its thick atmosphere and rich organic chemistry, suggests Titan “has the ingredients for life,” she says.
Although no one is certain, primitive microbes—or something more—might flourish within the moon's dark methane seas.
After touchdown, the Dragonfly vehicle (a “rotorcraft") will fly around Titan, land in locations hundreds of miles apart, and sample the surface.
Detailed measurements of those samples, says Turtle, could answer “fundamental unknowns” about Titan.
CAESAR, looking a bit like a ceiling fan with only two blades, would land on Churyumov-Gerasimenko, an ancient comet with “a real jawbreaker of a name,” says Steve Squyres, the project’s lead investigator.
Comets, many scientists say, delivered water and organic molecules to a primordial Earth, perhaps igniting life here.
Yet the icy bodies remain an enigma to astronomers, ranking “among the most poorly understood” of celestial objects, Squyres says.
After landing, CAESAR will scoop up a sample from the comet’s nucleus, then bring it back to Earth.
By studying the 100 gram sample (two-tenths of a pound), scientists may obtain clues on how the solar system formed 4.6 billion years ago.
“It’s going to produce groundbreaking science for decades to come,” says Squyres.
For Dragonfly and CAESAR, the competition continues. Ultimately, NASA picks only one project.
Both teams will spend 2018—and $4 million each—finalizing their proposals, due for review in January 2019. NASA chooses a winner the following July.
Mission cost is capped at $850 million; launch cost runs about $150 million.
Like all of NASA’s New Frontiers projects, both Dragonfly and CAESAR are long haul. A liftoff won’t happen until 2025. If Dragonfly is picked, it won’t arrive at Titan until 2034. If CAESAR wins, its comet sample won’t get back to Earth until 2038.
And that’s if everything goes just right.
Says Squyres: “Patience is a virtue in this business.”
