What is the name of the car-sized, nuclear-powered octocopter lander whose subsystems are coming together in 2026 for a mission to Titan?

The mission you're describing is NASA's Dragonfly, an ambitious endeavor to explore Saturn's largest moon, Titan. This car-sized, nuclear-powered octocopter is a revolutionary spacecraft designed to fly through Titan's dense atmosphere, offering an unprecedented mobile exploration of an ocean world. Dragonfly's unique design, resembling a large drone (Deals) with eight rotors, allows it to take advantage of Titan's low gravity and thick atmosphere to cover significant distances, sampling diverse regions and geological contexts that a traditional rover couldn't reach.

Titan is a fascinating target for astrobiology and the study of life's chemical origins. It's the only moon in our solar system with a dense atmosphere and features a methane and ethane "hydrologic" cycle, complete with clouds, rain, rivers, lakes, and seas. The surface is rich in complex organic compounds, and scientists believe that interactions between these organics and liquid water, perhaps from impact melt or cryovolcanic flows, could have formed prebiotic compounds, offering insights into the conditions that may have led to life on early Earth. Dragonfly will investigate these environments, searching for chemical biosignatures and characterizing the moon's habitability.

Powering this innovative rotorcraft is a Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG), similar to those used on the Mars Curiosity rover, which provides consistent power without relying on solar panels in Titan's hazy skies. The year 2026 is a significant period for the mission, as the integration and testing of Dragonfly's subsystems are actively underway at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL). This crucial phase involves assembling the rotorcraft's components, including its "brain" (the Integrated Electronics Module) and power systems, and testing them rigorously to prepare for launch. While the subsystems are coming together now, Dragonfly is scheduled for launch in July 2028 and is expected to arrive at Titan in 2034, beginning its 3.3-year science mission to unravel the mysteries of this enigmatic moon.