NASA plans to build the RTG-powered drone, what will operate inside Titan-moon atmosphere

NASA plans to build the RTG-powered drone, what will operate inside Titan-moon atmosphere

Titan moon is a very extraordinary moon in our solar system because it's the thick atmosphere and weak gravity, which makes it really interesting because it should not have that atmosphere. And that would make that moon a very good target for nuclear-powered quadcopter, what can operate in its atmosphere even years.

The thing is that the normal quadcopter can handle that mission, but the problem is the huge distance. That makes impossible to control that drone directly from the Earth. The system that uses artificial intelligence must have very powerful computers, and this makes that kind of mission very difficult to accomplish. The system should have the capacity for independent and autonomous operations.

In some scenarios even more sophisticated and effective systems would follow this Titan probe. Those systems would base the technology, which is created to HAVOC (High Altitude Venus Operational Concept) -program. In this version, the high- altitude airship communicates with the drones, what are flying near the surface of Titan or Venus. The system can use "green energy" and in some scenarios, the system would transmit the electricity to the drone swarm by using maser-transmitters. 

https://sacd.larc.nasa.gov/smab/havoc/

This kind of systems is really difficult to create because there is no time and room for mistakes. And this makes the creation of this kind of systems and especially required computer programs really complicated. In some scenarios, this kind of systems has central component, what would operate as the central processing unit, and the other drones, what is simpler and smaller.

The idea is that those sub-drones can dive in the oceans of Titan and observe the world, what is totally different than our own. In fact in the future to the other planets would send the drone swarms, where simpler drones would create the data network by using modems. The swarm of small quadcopters can cover larger areas than single drones, and the swarm can lose a single drone, and it can still continue the mission.

And in this case, other parts of nuclear-powered drones can wait in high-altitude, and that high-altitude swarm can send the replacement units to the swarm, what operates in low altitude for replacing the destroyed parts of the swarm. Those drones could be similar quadcopters, what is tested in the military areas. They can operate by using small size plutonium-batteries, and they can operate in the atmosphere of other planets a very long time.

https://gizmodo.com/nasa-is-officially-sending-an-aerial-drone-to-titan-and-1835918159