<story><title>NASA May Decide This Year to Land a Drone on Saturn&apos;s Moon Titan</title><url>https://www.space.com/43010-dragonfly-mission-would-put-a-drone-on-titan.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>cheeko1234</author><text>Dragonfly is such an amazing concept. A nuclear powered quadcopter!&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;dragonfly.jhuapl.edu&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;dragonfly.jhuapl.edu&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;Unable to use solar power under Titan&amp;#x27;s hazy atmosphere, Dragonfly would use a Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG), like the durable Curiosity rover on Mars. Flight, data transmission, and most science operations would be planned during Titan&amp;#x27;s daytime hours (eight Earth days), giving the rotorcraft plenty of time during the Titan night to recharge.</text></comment>
<story><title>NASA May Decide This Year to Land a Drone on Saturn&apos;s Moon Titan</title><url>https://www.space.com/43010-dragonfly-mission-would-put-a-drone-on-titan.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>mabbo</author><text>I think the real breakthrough on some of these probes to other planets isn&amp;#x27;t so much how they move around, but the growing possibility of self-directed action. Mars is between 3 light minutes and 22 light minutes away. Every command takes at least that long to reach a probe on Mars, then the same amount of time for NASA to be told &amp;quot;Yes, I heard you and did that&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;The Curiosity rover has been on Mars for 6 years. It can travel 90m&amp;#x2F;hour. Theoretically, it could have moved 3,400km by now- that&amp;#x27;s more than once around the equator of Mars. It&amp;#x27;s managed almost 20km. While I&amp;#x27;m sure there was much to pause and study, I cannot fathom that it could not have done more in it&amp;#x27;s time were it not constantly waiting for commands.&lt;p&gt;Saturn is, at closest approach, more than 1 light hour away.&lt;p&gt;I feel as though there&amp;#x27;s a real need to put a generic computer system that can be reprogrammed after launch into orbit around whatever planet we&amp;#x27;re studying. Give it higher-level commands of what we want to see happen, and send us back the highlight reel.</text></comment>