Quote:NASA Dragonfly’s integration and testing – the activities involved in assembling the mission’s rotorcraft lander and testing it for the rigors of launch and extreme conditions of space – is officially underway in clean rooms and control rooms at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland.

In partnership with teams across government, industry and academia, APL is building the car-sized, nuclear-powered drone for NASA. Dragonfly is scheduled to launch no earlier than 2028 for a six-year voyage to Saturn’s moon Titan, where it will explore a range of diverse sites to study the chemistry, geology, and atmosphere of the terrestrial moon and ultimately advance our understanding of life’s chemical origins.

Primary activities during the first weeks of this effort included power and functional testing on two critical components: the Integrated Electronics Module (IEM) and the Power Switching Units (PSUs). Think of the IEM as Dragonfly’s “brain,” containing the spacecraft’s core avionics (such as command and data handling, guidance and navigation, and communications) in a single space-saving and power-efficient box. The IEM and both PSUs were connected to Dragonfly’s wiring system and passed their first power-service checks.

“This milestone essentially marks the birth of our flight system,” said Elizabeth Turtle, Dragonfly principal investigator from APL. “Building a first-of-its kind vehicle to fly across another ocean world in our solar system pushes us to the edge of what’s possible, but that’s exactly why this stage is so exciting. The team is doing an outstanding job, and every component we install and every test we run brings us one step closer to launching Dragonfly to Titan.”

https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/dragonfly/2026/03/10/nasas-dragonfly-mission-begins-rotorcraft-integration-testing-stage/