Nasa announcement: Mission to send spacecraft to Saturn's moon Titan revealed - as it happened

NASA announces a new Solar System mission

Nasa will send a lander mission to Saturn's largest moon Titan to search for signs of life, the space agency has revealed.

The Dragonfly mission will launch in 2026 and arrive at Titan in 2034.

Revealing the mission in an announcement live-streamed online, Jim Bridenstine, Nasa administrator, said the space agency was "pushing the boundaries of human knowledge and expanding the limits of technology".

Please wait a moment while the liveblog loads

Key Points

• Timings for tonight's announcement revealed
• Nasa to open moon rock samples sealed since Apollo missions

[27 June 2019 20:40 · Andrew Griffin]

Here's another video from Nasa, teasing today's announcement, to get you even more hyped:

[27 June 2019 20:55 · Andrew Griffin]

As a reminder, here's the link to watch along live. (Nothing has started yet and won't for another five minutes – if Nasa is good at anything, then it's countdowns!)

[27 June 2019 21:01 · Andrew Griffin]

We are GO.

[27 June 2019 21:02 · Andrew Griffin]

We're running through the previous missions launched as part of this programme. First up: New Horizons, which was sent to examine Pluto and did plenty of other work, too. Next, Juno, which has been looking at Juno for the last couple of years. Then, Osiris-Rex, which is bringing a sample from an asteroid back to Earth in 2023.

[27 June 2019 21:02 · Andrew Griffin]

Today, the next mission!

[27 June 2019 21:02 · Andrew Griffin]

The next new frontiers mission will be Dragonfly, exploring Saturn's biggest moon, Titan.

[27 June 2019 21:06 · Andrew Griffin]

Nasa scientist Lori Glaze says one of the most exciting things here is that Titan has the ingredients for life – in fact, Dragonfly could find signatures of alien life.

[27 June 2019 21:08 · Andrew Griffin]

It will be the first time Nasa will ever have gone to the moon of another planet.

[27 June 2019 21:09 · Andrew Griffin]

[27 June 2019 21:09 · Andrew Griffin]

Nasa stressing that the pictures we get back might look eerily familiar: Titan has mountains and rivers, and looks a lot like Earth.