Exploring Saturn's moon Titan with Dragonfly

Title

Exploring Saturn's moon Titan with Dragonfly

Speaker

Dr. Ralph Lorenz, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory

Date

January 20, 2026

Abstract

Saturn's giant moon Titan has been revealed to be remarkably Earth-like, with a landscape of vast dunefields, river channels and lakes under a smoggy sky punctuated by methane downpours. Titan serves as a frigid laboratory in which the same processes that shape our own planet can be seen in action under exotic conditions. Titan has a rich inventory of complex organic molecules that may provide clues how the building blocks of life are assembled. I will review Titan and the development of the Dragonfly mission for its launch in 2028. Dragonfly is an octocopter lander, able to repeatedly take off and fly tens of kilometers in Titan's dense atmosphere and low gravity to sample the surface in a wide range of geological settings. I will also note a couple of recent highlights of my work on other solar system objects.

Biography

Ralph Lorenz is a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, specializing in the interaction of vehicles and instruments with planetary surfaces and atmospheres. He has worked on European, Japanese and NASA missions to Mars, Venus and Titan, is a Co-Investigator on the Perseverance rover, is the Mission Architect of the Dragonfly New Frontiers mission to Titan and leads the Atmospheric Structure Investigation on the DAVINCI mission to Venus. He has over 300 refereed journal publications and has authored ten books including "Titan Unveiled", "Spinning Flight" and "Space Systems Failures".