- Talk
- Science & Technology
- Manchester
- 16 December 2026
What Does It Take to Fly a Billion Miles from Earth?
The Dragonfly octocopter mission to fly through the atmosphere of Saturn’s moon, Titan, and to seek signs of life on the surface.
16 December 2026
6:30pm - 8:00pm
Manchester M1 3NJ
(Access via Altrincham Street Entrance)
Lecture Theatre, Renold Innovation Hub
81 Sackville Street
Manchester M1 3NJ
(Access via Altrincham Street Entrance)
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£15.00 General Admission / £6.00 Students / Members book for FREE
Overview
Set to launch in July 2028 and arrive in 2034, NASA’s Dragonfly mission will deploy a relocatable rotorcraft — an octocopter the size of a Mars rover — to explore Saturn’s largest moon from the air. Flying on an alien world presents extraordinary engineering challenges: operating at cryogenic temperatures of -180°C (-290°F) powered by a radioisotope generator, navigating autonomously, and transmitting data directly back to Earth without a dedicated relay orbiter. Yet, Titan’s thick atmosphere and low gravity mean rotary-wing flight requires 38 times less power than on Earth, enabling Dragonfly to hop several kilometres at a time between diverse geological sites.
A vast landscape of discovery awaits. Soaring across Titan’s expansive organic sand dunes toward the ancient Selk impact crater, Dragonfly will investigate locations where impact heat once melted water ice and mixed it with organic compounds. By sampling these unique chemical environments, the mission aims to uncover the prebiotic chemical processes that could hold clues to the origins of life itself.
In this special talk, Dr Ralph Lorenz — Planetary Scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory and Mission Architect for Dragonfly — will share personal insights into humanity’s return to Titan. He will explore how lessons from the Huygens landing helped shape this revolutionary flying lander, the unique hazards of operating in Titan’s environment, and the breathtaking scientific revelations on the horizon.
If you are fascinated by space exploration, planetary science, robotics, or the search for life’s chemical building blocks, you won’t want to miss this event.
Practical Information
Booking is strongly advised.
Access
Access to the event is via the Altrincham Street entrance.
Accessibility Information
If you have any specific accessibility requirements, please contact us at events@manlitphil.ac.uk.
Dr Ralph Lorenz
Dr Ralph Lorenz was a key member of the team behind the Surface Science Package onboard the Huygens probe that landed on Titan in January 2005. As a young researcher under John Zarnecki, Lorenz designed the penetrometer that became the very first piece of human hardware to touch Titan’s frozen surface.
Ralph D. Lorenz is a planetary scientist and engineer at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab and currently serves as Mission Architect of Dragonfly, NASA’s fourth selected New Frontiers mission. He leads the Venus Atmospheric Structure Investigation on the DAVINCI Discovery mission to Venus and is recipient of the 2020 International Planetary Probe Workshop (IPPW) Al Seiff memorial award, and the 2022 American Geophysical Union’s Fred Whipple Award for contributions to planetary science.
Lorenz earned a B.Eng. in Aerospace Systems Engineering from the University of Southampton (UK) Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics in 1990. For his thesis “Exploring the Surface of Titan”, Lorenz was awarded a PhD in Space Sciences from the University of Kent at Canterbury in 1994. Lorenz spent 1994-2006 at the University of Arizona as a postdoctoral fellow and research scientist. In 2006, he joined the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab. Ralph Lorenz has published over 200 papers on spacecraft exploration of several bodies of the Solar System.