Rendering of the Dragonfly rover on Saturn’s moon Titan.
Photo: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben

NASA awarded SpaceX a contract to launch the agency’s Dragonfly mission to Saturn’s Titan moon on a Falcon Heavy rocket in 2028. The firm-fixed-price contract announced Monday is worth $256.6 million and includes launch services and other mission related costs.

Dragonfly is a rotorcraft mission to explore Saturn’s moon Titan, and it is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program. Its scientific payload will characterize Titan’s environment, exploring prebiotic chemistry and chemical indications of whether water-based or hydrocarbon-based life once existed on Saturn’s moon. With a dual quadcopter design, the rover is designed to “hop” between different sites on Titan to collect data. 

Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory is leading the mission with a team of scientists and companies around the world including Lockheed Martin, JAXA, DLR, and CNES.  

NASA is currently targeting the mission to launch between July 5, 2028, and July 25, 2028 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.