SpaceX Falcon Heavy To Launch NASA's Dragonfly Mission To Saturn's Largest Moon In 2028

NASA has selected Elon Musk‘s SpaceX to provide launch services for a rotorcraft lander mission aimed at exploring the largest moon of the planet Saturn in July 2028

What Happened: The deal is priced at about $256.6 million, including launch services and other related costs.

The mission is expected to fly in the period from July 5 to July 25, 2028, on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Florida to explore the moon called Titan.

“Dragonfly centers on novel approach to planetary exploration, employing a rotorcraft-lander to travel between and sample diverse sites on Saturn's largest moon,” NASA said in a statement.

The mission is aimed at identifying the habitability of Titan's environment and searching for chemical indications of whether water-based or hydrocarbon-based life once existed on Saturn's moon, among other goals.

Why It Matters: SpaceX has multiple contracts with NASA to fly astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) and also to bring down the space station upon its retirement around 2030.

NASA is also relying on a particular version of SpaceX’s Starship launch vehicle called the Human Landing System or HLS to enable astronauts to land back on the surface of the Moon for the first time since 1972.

During the Artemis 3 mission, slated for no earlier than September 2026, the Starship HLS will be launched first and it will wait for NASA's Orion spacecraft in lunar orbit after filling its tanks in space. Once the Orion spacecraft arrives, the HLS will dock with it. Two of the four crew members on the mission will transfer from Orion to Starship and descend to the surface of the moon.

The last time humans set foot on the Moon was in 1972 with Apollo 17. Since then, no crew has traveled beyond low-Earth orbit.

While SpaceX is not yet listed on the exchanges, investors can leverage Destiny Tech100 Inc. DXYZ and Cathie Wood‘s Ark Venture Fund ARKVX to participate in the Musk-led space company's growth.

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Photo courtesy: NASA