Budget obstacle to NASA’s Dragonfly Mission!

Ana sayfa / Popular Science

NASA’s Dragonfly Mission to Titan will face further delays due to budget uncertainties. The space agency has delayed the launch of the Dragonfly mission to Titan until 2028. At the same time, the project will not be approved until the end of next year. Here are the details…

Dragonfly Mission postponed to 2028!

NASA announced that it has postponed its ambitious Dragonfly Mission to Saturn’s moon Titan. He shifted the launch date to July 2028. In fact, this decision was taken due to budget uncertainties. NASA made this decision even though the mission had successfully passed important design reviews. Worryingly, the space agency is delaying formal approval of the mission until a budget review in mid-2024.

In fact, this mission was first brought to the agenda in 2017. Then NASA found it suitable for the New Frontiers program in 2019. In fact, Dragonfly Mission is no stranger to delays. It was originally planned to launch in 2026. However, due to external budget pressures, it was first postponed to 2027. Now, amid current financial difficulties, it won’t launch until 2028.

Dragonfly, a groundbreaking planetary exploration project using a rover-lander, aims to study Titan’s environment and potential for life. Given the delay, Dragonfly won’t land on Titan until 2035.

Lori Glaze, administrator of NASA’s planetary science division, expressed concerns at a recent meeting of NASA’s Outer Planets Assessment Group (OPAG). She emphasized the difficulty of approving tasks without a clear budget view. “How can we approve a mandate if we don’t know exactly what the budget horizon looks like?” she said. Glaze highlighted the need for a “executable budget profile” for Dragonfly.

Glaze did not provide a cost estimate for the mission. However, she admitted that it exceeded initial expectations. As the mission’s costs increase, the Dragonfly Mission will be relegated to another category. It will likely be reclassified as a flagship mission (i.e., $1 billion or more), a category that includes NASA’s most expensive and complex projects, such as the Mars Perseverance rover and the James Webb Space Telescope.

Glaze admitted that the cost had increased due to delays and other reasons, saying: “As a result, there is a very complex and complex set of issues that have resulted in a higher cost for the Dragonfly Mission than originally planned.”