NASA confirms Dragonfly mission despite double costs

WASHINGTON — NASA has approved development of a mission to Saturn’s moon Titan, despite costs that have doubled since the agency selected the mission nearly five years ago.

NASA announced on April 16 that the Dragonfly mission had passed confirmation review. Passing the assessment will allow Dragonfly, a nuclear-powered helicopter plane that will travel to various locations on Titan to study the moon’s habitability, to develop to full scale.

The mission underwent part of its confirmation review last fall, but the agency said in November that it would delay a final decision on the mission until the spring, after the release of the fiscal year 2025 budget proposal. NASA also announced at the time that the launch the mission, previously scheduled for July 2027, had been pushed back a year to July 2028.

The confirmation review represents a formal commitment by NASA regarding the cost and schedule for a mission. NASA said it confirmed a July 2028 launch of Dragonfly and a total mission cost of $3.35 billion.

That cost is much higher than what NASA approved when it selected Dragonfly as its latest New Frontiers mission in June 2019. At the time, the mission had a cost cap of $850 million for what NASA refers to as phases A through D, excluding launch and post-launch operations.

NASA acknowledged in its confirmation announcement that the total life cycle costs, including launch and operations, were double what the previous estimate was. The agency blamed several factors, including rescheduling due to budget constraints, the impact of the pandemic and supply chain challenges, and a “deep design iteration.”

In a statement to SpaceNews on April 19, NASA said the costs included in that original cap had increased from $1 billion in “real annual” dollars, adjusted for inflation, to $2.1 billion, hence the statement that the costs had doubled.

“In each of the three fiscal years following Dragonfly’s selection, NASA imposed a cost cap for the current year due to budget constraints. The cumulative impact of these early NASA-led replans, and another following the Preliminary Design Review (PDR), are responsible for nearly two-thirds of the increase in Phase AD costs,” NASA said.

“The Dragonfly project also conducted an in-depth design iteration prior to the PDR,” NASA added. “The higher costs of this, combined with COVID-related increases in labor costs and parts and materials costs, account for the balance of the increase in Phase AD costs.”

These increases are clearly reflected in NASA’s fiscal year 2025 budget proposal. NASA is requesting $434.6 million for Dragonfly in 2025, compared to a projection of $355.5 million for the mission in the agency’s budget request for 2024. For fiscal years 2025 through 2028, NASA now expects to spend $1.68 billion on Dragonfly, double the forecast for the same period in its 2024 proposal.

NASA also expects to spend more money on the Dragonfly launch. NASA said it will acquire a heavy lift vehicle for the mission later this year that could allow Dragonfly to arrive at Titan in 2034. That’s the scheduled date NASA selected the mission in 2019, despite a two-year launch delay. From that moment on.

The agency continues to support the mission despite cost challenges. “Dragonfly is a spectacular science mission with broad community interest, and we are excited to take the next steps in this mission,” Nicola Fox, NASA associate administrator for science, said in the statement about Dragonfly’s confirmation. “Exploring Titan will push the boundaries of what we can do with helicopters beyond Earth.”

These cost increases, along with broader budget pressures on NASA in general and its planetary science programs in particular, will impact future programs. Dragonfly is the fourth mission in the New Frontiers line, following New Horizons, Juno and OSIRIS-REx. NASA had planned to issue a call for proposals for the fifth New Frontiers mission in 2023, but postponed that until 2026 at the latest.

The agency has also warned of likely delays in calls for future missions in the Discovery line of planetary science missions, with lower cost caps than New Frontiers, as well as a line of planetary smallsat missions called SIMPLEx. “We have very few buttons we can turn to respond to these short-term challenges in the budget,” Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s planetary science division, said of delays in future calls for mission proposals during a town hall on 15 of April. .

The budget constraints have also affected NASA’s ability to begin work on a future flagship planetary science mission, a Uranus orbiter and atmospheric probe, which was recommended by the most recent decennial planetary science survey.

“In the current budget environment, we are not able to begin the studies and activities that we believe are necessary” to begin the mission, Glaze said at the town hall. NASA had hoped to start that this year or next year. “At this time, the current funding situation does not appear to support this.”

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