NASA just picked 2 finalists for its next billion-dollar space mission — here’s what the projects could accomplish
NASA says it will select a winner in 2019 and that the mission would be launch-ready by 2025
By Hilary Brueck
NASA just announced two finalists for its next robotic mission to explore mysterious corners of our solar system.
The picks for the mission, called New Frontiers-4, were chosen from a class of 12 proposals. The final winner will be chosen in 2019, NASA said, and will be granted US$850 million and a free rocket ride into the solar system, at a combined value of about US$1 billion.
One of the finalists, named ‘Dragonfly,’ is a lander that would head to Saturn’s moon Titan. The other, nicknamed CAESAR (which stands for Comet Astrobiology Exploration Sample Return), would go to the Churyumov–Gerasimenko comet and collect samples.
Each team now has roughly one year and US$4 million to finalise their concept before NASA makes its ultimate decision.
Here’s a first glimpse at what the ‘Dragonfly’ mission to Titan might look like. The project would attempt to follow up on and advance the Cassini probe’s groundbreaking 13-year exploration of Saturn.
