Titan Winged Aerobot (TWA) is a new

aerobot An aerobot is an aerial robot, usually used in the context of an uncrewed space probe or unmanned aerial vehicle. While work has been done since the 1960s on robot " rovers" to explore the Moon and other worlds in the Solar System, such machines ...

exploration vehicle (under creation) to enter the surface of

Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant, with an average radius of about 9 times that of Earth. It has an eighth the average density of Earth, but is over 95 tim ...

's largest moon

Titan Titan most often refers to: * Titan (moon), the largest moon of Saturn * Titans, a race of deities in Greek mythology Titan or Titans may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Fictional entities Fictional locations * Titan in fiction, fictiona ...

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

has given this contract to Global Aerospace Corporation and

Northrop Grumman Northrop Grumman Corporation is an American multinational Aerospace manufacturer, aerospace and Arms industry, defense company. With 97,000 employees and an annual revenue in excess of $40 billion, it is one of the world's largest Arms industry ...

collectively on July 6, 2016. Under the contract of 2016 NASA Small Business Innovation Research, both the teams will develop the TWA concept and produce a

proof of concept A proof of concept (POC or PoC), also known as proof of principle, is an inchoate realization of a certain idea or method in order to demonstrate its feasibility or viability. A proof of concept is usually small and may or may not be complete ...

prototype for Earth-based testing. Titan Winged Aerobot features will be its ultra-low power requirement and extended vertical range, both of which is inspired by Northrop Grumman's Titan lifting entry atmosphere flight (T-Leaf) platform. Titan's

atmosphere An atmosphere () is a layer of gases that envelop an astronomical object, held in place by the gravity of the object. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A stellar atmosph ...

is denser than Earth's atmosphere, with the atmospheric pressure of 1.45 atm. Its atmosphere contains 98.4%

nitrogen Nitrogen is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol N and atomic number 7. Nitrogen is a Nonmetal (chemistry), nonmetal and the lightest member of pnictogen, group 15 of the periodic table, often called the Pnictogen, pnictogens. ...

with remaining 1.6% is composed of 1.4%

methane Methane ( , ) is a chemical compound with the chemical formula (one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms). It is a group-14 hydride, the simplest alkane, and the main constituent of natural gas. The abundance of methane on Earth makes ...

and 0.1-0.2%

hydrogen Hydrogen is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol H and atomic number 1. It is the lightest and abundance of the chemical elements, most abundant chemical element in the universe, constituting about 75% of all baryon, normal matter ...

. Titan's cold and harsh environment can cause problems to any lighter-than-air exploration. TWA will be designed in the way that it can overcome those challenges.

Design

TWA is the vehicle with 3-D directional control so that it can complete its objectives of researching Titan's environment, while using minimal power from a single

radioisotope A radionuclide (radioactive nuclide, radioisotope or radioactive isotope) is a nuclide that has excess numbers of either neutrons or protons, giving it excess nuclear energy, and making it unstable. This excess energy can be used in one of three ...

power source. Constantly moving in an atmosphere will facilitate long lived flight at low altitudes and target delivery to the surface. Titan is the only moon with an atmosphere, and its atmosphere is the only known nitrogen-rich atmosphere in the

Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Sola ...

. The observations from ''

Voyager 1 ''Voyager 1'' is a space probe launched by NASA on September 5, 1977, as part of the Voyager program to study the outer Solar System and the interstellar medium, interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. It was launched 16 days afte ...

'' and ''

Cassini–Huygens ''Cassini–Huygens'' ( ), commonly called ''Cassini'', was a space research, space-research mission by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) to send a space probe to study the planet Saturn and its system, i ...

'' shows that its atmosphere is denser than Earth's with the atmospheric pressure of 1.45 atm. It is 1.9 times as massive as Earth overall.

References

{{Portal bar, Astronomy, Stars, Spaceflight, Outer space, Solar System Proposed NASA space probes Missions to Saturn Titan (moon)