NASA has selected SpaceX to provide launch services for the Dragonfly mission, featuring a rotorcraft lander, as part of the NASA New Frontiers program designed to explore Titan, Saturn's largest moon. The mission aims to collect material samples and analyze the surface composition across various geological settings while searching for the building blocks of life.

The fixed-price contract is valued at approximately $256.6 million, covering launch services and other mission-related costs. The Dragonfly mission is currently scheduled for a launch window between July 5 and July 25, 2028, aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Dragonfly introduces a novel approach to planetary exploration, utilizing a rotorcraft to traverse different locations on Titan and collect samples. With support from international partners, Dragonfly's scientific payload will assess Titan’s habitability, investigate the development of prebiotic chemistry on the moon—where carbon-rich material and liquid water might have interacted over extended periods—and search for chemical evidence of past life based on water or hydrocarbons.

The Dragonfly team, managed by NASA at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, includes scientists, engineers, technologists, managers, and other specialists with extensive experience in missions exploring the Solar System from the Sun to Pluto and beyond. The team also features global experts in rotorcraft technology, autonomous flight, and space systems.

Dragonfly is the fourth mission in NASA’s New Frontiers program, managed by the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.