Project Description: Saturn's largest moon, Titan, hosts stable hydrocarbon lakes composed primarily of methane and ethane, making it a prime candidate for investigating prebiotic chemistry and extraterrestrial habitability. While NASA's Dragonfly mission will provide unprecedented insights into Titan's surface and atmospheric dynamics, it lacks the capability for direct liquid sampling. This paper presents a nano-lander concept, a compact (~5-10 kg) autonomous probe, designed to hitch a ride with Dragonfly and deploy into one of Titan's lakes, such as Kraken Mare or Ligeia Mare, to perform in-situ analysis of its liquid environment. The proposed nano-lander features a floating design, equipped with a microfluidic chemical analyser, a mass spectrometer, an acoustic depth sounder, and infrared spectroscopy, enabling the detection of complex organic molecules and characterizing Titan's Lake properties. The lander will swim through the lake and make exploration findings.
NASA Relevance: This project will lead to new space mission concepts and secondary payload technology to explore Titan's surface. The craft will both operate in the Titan's atmosphere and Methane/Ethane lakes.
Work Description: The student will work to advance drone technology and make it amphibious to work in an environment suitable for flight in Titan's atmosphere and operate in Titan's methane lakes. The intern will perform system design, mechanical design, advance concept of operations, develop scale and experimental models and perform lab test to further advance the concept. The platform will be refined with use of 3D printing.
Open or Reserved Project: Open, 1 position