The Dragonfly Mission to Titan
The Dragonfly Mission to Titan by Dr. Ralph Lorenz RSVP and Information: https://conta.cc/3j7g5DK (This posting here is for information and donation only. No ticket sales on Meetup. Please follow RSVP link above (or below) for tickets. Thank you very much ! ) AIAA LA-LV e-Section Meeting Saturday, September 25, 2021, 10 AM PDT An AIAA LA-LV Zoom event The Dragonfly Mission to Titan by Dr. Ralph Lorenz Principal Professional Staff Applied Physics Lab., Johns Hopkins University Saturn's giant moon Titan has been revealed to be remarkably Earth-like, with a landscape of vast dunefields, river channels and lakes under a smoggy sky punctuated by methane downpours. Titan serves as a frigid laboratory in which the same processes that shape our own planet can be seen in action under exotic conditions. Titan has a rich inventory of complex organic molecules that may provide clues how the building blocks of life are assembled. NASA recently selected APL's Dragonfly mission concept as the next $1B-class New Frontiers mission to launch in 2027, to arrive in the mid-2030s. Dragonfly is an octocopter lander, able to repeatedly take off and fly tens of kilometers in Titan's dense atmosphere and low gravity to sample the surface in a wide range of geological settings. This presentation will describe the mission and how the concept was developed. ralph_dallol_satphone.jpg Dr. Ralph Lorenz worked as an engineer for the European Space Agency on the design of the Huygens probe to Saturn's moon Titan, and as a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona, and since 2006, at the JHU Applied Physics Lab. His activities have centered on Titan, Cassini-Huygens and future missions there, but his interests include Mars, dust devils, sand dunes, planetary atmospheres and landscapes, and aerospace systems. He is associated with NASA's InSight mission at Mars, the Perseverance rover, the Japanese Venus orbiter Akatsuki, and is the Mission Architect for Dragonfly, NASA's next New Frontiers mission (a rotorcraft lander for Titan). He is author or co-author of nine books including 'Lifting Titan's Veil', 'Spinning Flight', 'Exploring Planetary Climate' and 'Space Systems Failures', as well as over 300 journal publications. Tickets: (No Refund within 7 days before the event. No Refund during or after the event.) $2.95: AIAA Professional Member $5.95: Non-AIAA Member - Professional $1.95: AIAA Educator Member $4.95: Non-AIAA Member - Educator $1.45: AIAA University Student Member $4.45: Non-AIAA Member - University Student $0 (No Charge): AIAA High School (HS) Student Member, Non AIAA Member HS Student, and other K-12 Student (Those K-12 student registrants will be required to type in a statement during registration to confirm with honesty they are indeed High School or K-12 Students.) $2.95: AIAA Member - Other Categories $5.95: Non-AIAA Member - Other Categories $0 (No Charge): AIAA Life-Time Member $0 (No Charge): AIAA Member with 20 or more years of membership Disclaimer: The views of the speakers do not represent the views of AIAA or the AIAA Los Angeles-Las Vegas Section AIAA Los Angeles-Las Vegas Section | aiaa-lalv.org | [email protected] Read the full article
