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NASA Is Trying to Find Out if Life Could Exist on Saturn's Largest Moon, Titan

A new mission aims to help NASA determine whether Titan's conditions could be suitable for supporting life.

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Samantha Kelly
2 min read
An illustration showing a conceptual dust storm on Saturn's largest moon Titan gettyimages-1088373696

Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is the only known body in the solar system besides Earth with liquid on its surface.

 Mark Garlick/Science Photo Library/Getty Images

NASA is teaming up with rocket-maker SpaceX for its upcoming mission to explore Saturn's moon Titan, and the mission could return some fascinating results.

The US space agency on Monday announced a $256.6 million contract with SpaceX to support the launch of the Dragonfly mission — a rotorcraft lander mission under NASA's New Frontiers Program, which funds a series of medium-class spacecraft expeditions to explore the solar system. Dragonfly is the fourth mission in this program, and will cost about $3.35 billion.

Dragonfly, a nuclear-powered spacecraft about the size of a Mars Rover and capable of flight like a drone, will sample materials from Titan's surface and analyze its composition. It will take six years to arrive and is expected to stay for about two and a half years.

"Dragonfly's scientific payload will characterize the habitability of Titan's environment, investigate the progression of prebiotic chemistry on Titan — where carbon-rich material and liquid water may have mixed for an extended period — and search for chemical indications of whether water-based or hydrocarbon-based life ever existed on Saturn's moon," NASA said.

artist's impression of NASA Dragonfly drone flying over dunes

The Dragonfly rotorcraft will "travel between and sample diverse sites on Saturn's largest moon," NASA says.

 NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben

In a nod to how some scientists believe Titan could potentially support life, NASA added that it will be "advancing our search for the building blocks of life." 

Titan is the second-largest moon in the solar system, behind Jupiter's moon Ganymede, and is known for its dense atmosphere and lakes of liquid methane and ethane.

The Dragonfly mission is expected to launch in July 2028, on SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The announcement highlights SpaceX's growing role in NASA's ambitious missions beyond Earth's orbit. The company, which was founded by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, is also working on a Starship-derived lunar lander for NASA's Artemis III mission, which aims to send the first woman and the first person of color to the moon. That mission is now scheduled for September 2026, following delays due to funding challenges and technical issues.

Meanwhile, SpaceX showed interest earlier this week in ramping up the frequency of its Starship rockets – which is the centerpiece of its ambitions to explore the moon and Mars – to 25 launches per year starting in 2025.Â