NASA's Dragonfly Dream

In 2026, NASA will deploy a Mars-rover-sized drone called Dragonfly to Saturn's largest moon, Titan, for a 2.5-year fact-finding expedition.

The mission: The dual-quadcopter will roam the Shangri-La dune fields and explore an impact crater, collecting samples that could unlock secrets to "the origin of life itself." But don't hold your breath—Dragonfly won't reach Titan until 2034.

Dragonfly, the brainchild of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory and a team of space and drone experts, edged out a comet explorer to win NASA's New Frontiers contest.

• The "interplanetary Shark Tank" New Frontiers program allows researchers to duke it out for bragging rights to space missions with a cool budget up to $850 million, continuing the public-private partnership that got man to the moon in '69.

Zoom out: Space is no longer the exclusive stomping ground of governments (and I'm not just talking about Elon dumping a spaceship of devoted followers on Mars). NASA contracts with companies to take payloads to space and is working with commercial partners on everything from a low-earth orbit economy to manned Mars missions.