NASA on Thursday invited the public to add their names to a microchip that will ride on the agency’s Dragonfly rotorcraft to Saturn’s moon Titan. The agency said the “Journey to Titan” campaign lets people receive a digital boarding pass after submitting their names.
NASA said the public can add names until 11:59 p.m. EST Jan. 15, 2027. The agency posted the sign-up link at https://go.nasa.gov/dragonfly-names.
Dragonfly is being assembled at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., according to NASA. The mission is scheduled to launch in 2028 and arrive at Titan in 2034. After it lands, the rotorcraft will fly to different locations on the moon to explore diverse environments and look for clues about prebiotic chemistry, which NASA described as the chemistry that came before biology.
Nicky Fox, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said Dragonfly will conduct the first rotorcraft science mission on another world. “By flying the first-ever rotorcraft science mission, NASA will explore Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, as we search for signs of habitability,” Fox said.
NASA said Titan has a thick atmosphere, rivers and lakes of liquid methane, sweeping dunes, and a landscape rich in organic material. The agency said the microchip will fly aboard Dragonfly as it explores Titan by air.
NASA said the mission is led by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, with Elizabeth Turtle of APL as principal investigator. Dragonfly is the fourth mission in NASA’s New Frontiers Program, which is managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate.
NASA directed readers to learn more about Dragonfly at https://science.nasa.gov/mission/dragonfly/. The agency did not say how many names it expects to carry on the microchip.