Mission to Titan

Titan isn't exactly a nearby neighbor we can pop to and see how its doing, like Mars. When Earth and Saturn are closet ti each other they are still 1.2 billion kilometers apart. This means visits to Titan in the past have been few and far between. The first probe to visit the Saturnian system was NASA's Pioneer 11 in 1979, followed by Voyager 1 and 2 in 1980 and 1981 respectively. NASA's Voyager spacecraft were pivotal in making initial measurements of its physical properties such as mass, density, composition and so on. These observations caught the attention of many because of their irregularity. The best spy send to the Saturnian system, and in particular Titan, was the Cassini spacecraft and its accompanying Huygens lander a collaborative mission between NASA, the ESA and ASI. Cassini-Huygens arrived at Saturn in July 2004 and made many observations of the moon before Huygens was release with the intention to burst through the hazy atmosphere of Titan and land on its surface. On 14 January 2005 Huygens made its successful descent onto Titan before its batteries died and communication ceased with Cassini. All observations of Titan after the fact were made by Cassini before it ended its mission by crashing into Saturn's atmosphere in September 2017. This data collected by Cassini is still providing new discoveries over a year after the mission's end. There have been talks of mailing more probes to the exciting moon using new and innovative ways. One idea that is advanced discussion is the "Dragonfly" lander, as part of Dragonfly lander will not just sit on the surface like Huygens, it will be a dual-quadcopter drone capable of moving around Titans thick and nitrogen rich atmosphere. This would allow astronomers to get a closer look at different surface features and would allow more freedom in movement than a rover.

​Courtesy to NASA