NASA’s Dragonfly mission, aimed at exploring Saturn’s moon Titan, will be delayed: the next stage of development has been postponed by a year, and the launch is scheduled for July 2028. The official reason for the delay was budget uncertainty, which delayed official confirmation and determination of the cost and schedule of the Dragonfly mission.

The Dragonfly team will continue to work on the next phase of development, Phase C, which will develop a rotary unmanned vehicle the size of a car. This vehicle will fly over Titan’s dunes and will be able to land to study Titan’s abundance of organic molecules.

On November 28, at a meeting of NASA’s External Planetary Assessment Group (OPAG), Laurie Glaze, director of the agency’s planetary science division, announced the reasons for the delay in the launch, which was originally scheduled to take place in 2027. Funding and budget uncertainties for 2024 and 2025 were the main reason for the delay in official confirmation of the Dragonfly mission. Glaze also noted that the Dragonfly mission design will be presented again to the program management council (APMC) in the spring of 2024, following the preliminary readiness of the fiscal year 2025 budget proposal at NASA.

The Dragonfly team will replan the mission, and once all necessary changes are completed and verified, NASA will assess the mission’s readiness for launch in mid-2024. As a result, some elements of the Dragonfly mission will be delayed while other aspects continue to be developed.

Dragonfly is the only NASA mission planned to explore the surface of Titan. When the device arrives on Titan, it will look for signs indicating the possibility of life. Dragonfly will also study how advanced prebiotic chemistry is on Saturn’s moon, and even look for signs of water or hydrocarbon-based molecules.

In addition to traveling further on Titan than any other alien rover on its missions, Dragonfly will also land on Saturn’s surface in different regions, collecting samples to determine the composition of surface materials in different regions.

Studying Titan is a high priority for planetary scientists because it is the only moon in the solar system known for its thick atmosphere and hydrological cycle similar to Earth’s. It is also an oceanic world with clouds of methane, rain, and liquid on the surface that forms lakes and seas. The discovery of oceans and the potential presence of organic matter frozen in Titan’s ice increases the potential for viability on this moon.

The Dragonfly mission is being developed and will be managed by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Maryland. To carry out the research on board the device, cameras, sensors and sample collection tools will be used.

“Dragonfly is a fearless engineering concept that is one of a kind. I am inspired by how our team has repeatedly overcome obstacles by working together and thinking outside the box,” said Dragonfly Principal Investigator Elizabeth Turtle.

Several components of Dragonfly, including control and navigation systems, have already been tested over California deserts chosen for their similarity to the dunes on Titan – as well as in wind tunnels at NASA’s Langley Science Center. The full-scale model was also tested in the Titan Simulation Chamber at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory—which recreates the cold temperatures and atmospheric pressures similar to Titan’s methane environment.

For now, the Dragonfly mission remains the only NASA mission planned to study the surface of Titan. It represents an important step in exploring the potential viability and organic chemistry of other planets and moons in the solar system.

“Team Dragonfly has demonstrated readiness for the next phase of our journey to conquer Titan. We are relentlessly moving forward without losing the curiosity and creativity that are key to the success of the Dragonfly mission,” said Turtle.

The Indian space agency ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization) announced that the Aditya Solar Wind Particle Experiment (ASPEX) payload on board the Indian Aditya-L1 satellite has begun to function normally.

Aditya-L1 was launched on a PSLV-C57 launch vehicle from Sriharikota on September 2. The satellite is placed in a halo orbit at the L1 Lagrange point, located between the Earth and the Sun.

The goal of the Aditya-L1 project is to study solar wind and space weather. The information obtained by the satellite will reveal the origin, acceleration and direction of the solar wind, as well as understand its impact on Earth.

Aditya-L1 is the second ISRO spacecraft to move beyond the Earth’s gravitational sphere of influence after the successful Mars Exploration Mission. Aditya-L1 carries seven scientific instruments, including four solar observation instruments and three plasma and magnetic field measurements.

ASPEX includes two important instruments: the Solar Wind Ion Spectrometer (SWIS) and the High Energy Particle Spectrometer (STEPS).

STEPS was launched on September 10th and SWIS started on November 2nd this year and has already shown results. SWIS, using two sensor units with a full 360° view, operates in planes perpendicular to each other. This spectrometer monitors solar wind ions, particularly protons and alpha particles. According to ISRO, SWIS has successfully measured these particles, which are a major contributor to the solar wind.

An energy histogram obtained from one of the SWIS sensors over two days in November shows changes in the number of protons (H+) and alpha particles (He2+). These data provide a rich set of information about the behavior of the solar wind. This measurement will help resolve questions about the properties of the solar wind, its basic processes and influence on the Earth. Also, the change in the proportion of protons and alpha particles observed by SWIS has the potential to provide indirect information about the occurrence of coronal mass ejections at the L1 Lagrange point.

After careful analysis of the collected data, the scientific community expects to gain new knowledge about the characteristics of the solar wind and its impact on Earth from the ASPEX experiment on the Aditya-L1 satellite.

Amazon’s Kuiper project, which aims to provide broadband Internet, could become a competitor to SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network. There is no place for friendship in the world of business: Amazon announced a contract for three launches of Project Kuiper satellites on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Thus, Amazon is expanding its capabilities to implement its deployment strategy. Information on the exact dates and costs of launches was not provided.

Project Kuiper, similar to Starlink, is being developed to provide broadband Internet access to millions of people around the world. SpaceX is already well ahead of its competitors, launching thousands of satellites and attracting more than two million subscribers to its Starlink network.

In October, Amazon launched two prototypes for the first time on United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket. A few weeks ago, Amazon announced that the satellites had successfully passed tests and were now scheduled to begin mass production at a plant in Kirkland, Washington. The SpaceX factory is also nearby in Redmond.

The first Kuiper satellites to users are due to launch early next year, with beta service becoming available in the second half of 2024. Under a license from the FCC, half of the Kuiper constellation of 3,236 satellites is expected to be in low-Earth orbit by mid-2026. Most of Amazon’s launches are planned to be carried out on three types of rockets (which have not yet flown a single mission): Blue Origin’s New Glenn, ULA’s Vulcan and Arianespace’s Ariane 6.

In addition to the three Falcon 9 launches, Amazon has reserved space on eight Atlas V rockets, which are solid choices. So SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launch reservation provides some security for Amazon’s deployment plan.

The selection of SpaceX for a portion of Project Kuiper’s launches could also affect the lawsuit, which alleges Amazon did not sufficiently consider SpaceX as a potential launch provider.

In August, a pension fund that has Amazon shares in its portfolio filed a lawsuit. The lawsuit alleges that Amazon’s directors and officers refused to cooperate with SpaceX because of the latter’s competition with Blue Origin.

“In light of SpaceX’s proven reliability and economic advantages, the decision by Bezos-led Amazon not to even consider SpaceX as a launch provider highlights the conflicting interests Bezos has with Amazon and Blue Origin and the significant impact these conflicts will have on the board’s ability to protect the interests of the company and its shareholders in conducting contract negotiations,” the pension fund said in its lawsuit.

SpaceX’s choice for some of Kuiper’s launches refutes the pension fund’s arguments. However, a hearing in this case has not yet been scheduled. Amazon said that the pension fund’s claims are “completely baseless” and they intend to prove this during the legal process.