NASA invites public to Send names to Titan aboard Dragonfly

NASA opened the Send Your Name to Titan campaign. Names are due by 11:59 p.m. EST on Jan. 15, 2027. Submissions go through NASA’s campaign website. Participants receive a personalized digital boarding pass.

Dragonfly is the first rotorcraft designed to conduct scientific exploration on another world, a milestone in planetary aviation. It targets Titan’s dense atmosphere, liquid methane lakes, and organic-rich terrain, making it a unique platform for planetary science. The mission is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program. Dragonfly is the fourth mission in the series.

Scheduled to launch in 2028 and arrive at Titan in 2034, Dragonfly will spend three years exploring diverse environments, including dunes and lakes, to study chemistry, geology, and atmospheric conditions. The mission aims to advance understanding of life’s chemical origins by analyzing Titan’s organic-rich landscape and prebiotic chemistry.

Dragonfly’s assembly is underway at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, under the direction of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, managed by the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Elizabeth Turtle of APL serves as principal investigator, leading the mission design and construction. APL leads the mission’s design and construction, and Lockheed Martin tested the pose mechanism.

Dragonfly will study Titan’s prebiotic chemistry to advance understanding of life’s origins. NASA’s Send Your Name campaigns let citizens take part symbolically in space exploration missions as a tradition of public engagement.

In October 2026, Dragonfly successfully completed its first simulated flight test, validating its flight software, avionics, and sensor systems in a real-time environment. The test simulated Dragonfly’s first flight on Titan, including autonomous navigation, hazard detection, and landing procedures, using flight-like hardware and simulated Titan terrain. Zach Putnam, Dragonfly mobility subsystem lead engineer at APL, described the first flight test as the “most challenging flight” because it uses every flight sensor hardware on the lander.

Dragonfly’s autonomous flight capabilities are critical, as real-time communication with Earth is impossible due to Titan’s distance. The rotorcraft must operate independently, using lidar, cameras, and inertial sensors to avoid hazards and land safely in Titan’s extreme environment. Engineers are testing fault responses to ensure Dragonfly can adapt to unexpected conditions during flight.

Nicky Fox, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate, called Dragonfly “one of the most exciting space missions of our lifetime” and said it will “blow your mind.”