The US space agency has entrusted SpaceX with launching an upcoming mission to Saturn. For this, the company will mobilize its largest current rocket: the Falcon Heavy.
She had a destination, but she didn’t yet have “transportation” to get there. It is now settled: the Dragonfly mission of the American space agency (Nasa) will take off aboard a launcher chartered by SpaceX. And not just any rocket: it will be the Falcon Heavy, the company’s current largest operational rocket.
The selection of the Falcon Heavy was announced by NASA during the day of November 25, 2024. The launcher will take off from Florida, from the Kennedy Space Center, facing the Gulf of Mexico. However, we will have to wait before seeing the machine in action: takeoff is planned for a firing window which runs from July 5 to 25, 2028.
The Falcon Heavy was chosen… while waiting for Starship?
The Falcon Heavy is SpaceX’s most powerful rocket to date, at least among those that are operational. It is in fact a classic Falcon 9 rocket, to which two additional boosters have been added – these boosters are two first stages of two other Falcon 9 rockets, in order to deliver much greater thrust.
That being said, the question nevertheless arises as to whether the Falcon Heavy will indeed be the machine that will send the Dragonfly mission into space. Indeed, SpaceX is actively developing another launcher, the Starship, and it is supposed to be ready by the end of 2026 – when the Artemis III mission will take place. However, SpaceX sees Starship as its future Swiss army knife.
This prospect is not mentioned by SpaceX or NASA. However, this is a possibility to consider – unless the development of the Starship is significantly delayed, to the point of missing the firing window of summer 2028. In the long term, the American group is considering replacing the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy by the Starship.
Exploring Titan, Saturn’s main moon
The Dragonfly mission’s destination is the surroundings of Saturn – and more precisely Titan, its largest moon. Meaning “dragonfly” in English, the mission actually aims to deploy a sort of large drone equipped with eight rotors to explore the surface faster and more easily than a rover – similar to what is generally done on Mars.
Titan « has a nitrogen-based atmosphere four times denser than Earth’s », according to Nasa. « Dragonfly will help advance astrobiology and our search for the building blocks of life. » This includes the quest for “ prebiotic chemical processes common to Titan and Earth before life evolved », abonde SpaceX.
