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Story summary
- Professor Daniel Drew received an NIAC grant to develop SPARK Aerobots for Titan cave exploration.
- SPARK will use ion thrusters that are silent, scalable but inefficient and may add up to two years in Phase 2 before liftoff, leaving Dragonfly’s 2028 launch timing uncertain.
- Ethan Schaler, Jacob Izraelevitz (NASA JPL), and Michael Malaska (Blue Marble Space Institute of Science) will run experiments, a trade study, and publish a report noting limited use.
