NASA Announces Mission To Explore Saturn's Largest Moon

 (CNN) -- NASA announced the latest mission in its New Frontiers program, called Dragonfly, which will explore Saturn's largest moon, Titan. It's the only moon in our solar system that has an atmosphere.

Before it ended in 2017, the Cassini mission flew by Titan while studying Saturn. The data provided by the Hyugens probe, which was part of the Cassini mission, suggested that Titan was the perfect candidate for further exploration.

"It's the first drone lander and it can fly over 100 miles through Titan's thick atmosphere," said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine in a statement. "Titan is most comparable to early Earth. Dragonfly's instruments will help evaluate organic chemistry and the chemical signatures of past or present life. We will launch Dragonfly to explore the frontiers of human knowledge for the benefit of all humanity."

The New Frontiers program has also included the Juno mission to Jupiter, the New Horizons probe that visited Pluto in 2015 and distant Kuiper Belt Object Ultima Thule on January 1.

The ultimate goal is for Dragonfly to visit Celt Crater, where they believe that important ingredients for life mixed together when something impacted Titan.

It's a Mars rover-sized drone, reaching about ten feet long.

Titan is similar chemically to Earth before life evolved, the agency said. They want to explore sand dunes on Titan to determine if they're made of the same organic discovered in the atmosphere.

"It's the science that motivates us to do this exciting and difficult mission," said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's associate administrator for Science at the agency's Headquarters in Washington.

"Titan has the key ingredients for life," said Lori Glaze, director of NASA's Planetary Science Division. "It has complex organic molecules and the energy required for life. We will have the opportunity to observe processes similar to what happened on early Earth when life formed and potentially conditions that could harbor life today. We can look for biosignatures."

Once Dragonfly lands, it will spend two and a half years flying around Titan. It only has propellers, with skids to land, but no wheels to allow it to roam over the surface.

It will launch in 2026, but won't reach Titan until the 2034 because Saturn is so far from us.

The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2019 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.