It’s an ambitious project. This will represent NASA’s first multi-rotor science vehicle on another celestial body, and the first of any kind to carry its full science payload between multiple areas. The drone will spend nine years flying relatively regular missions to collect samples and study both the habitability of Titan as well as the development of its prebiotic chemistry in a key impact crater.

It may take a long while to learn more about Titan as a result. If all goes well, though, Dragonfly should shed more light on the still-mysterious moon and the viability of life beyond Earth.

BIG NEWS: The next @NASASolarSystem mission is… #Dragonfly – a rotorcraft lander mission to Saturn’s largest moon Titan. This ocean world is the only moon in our solar system with a dense atmosphere & we’re so excited to see what Dragonfly discovers: https://t.co/whePqbuGBq pic.twitter.com/BQdMhSZfgP

— Jim Bridenstine (@JimBridenstine) June 27, 2019

Dragonfly is scheduled to launch in 2026, a slight delay in the originally planned launch window of 2025. It will spend nine years in flight, covering 840 million miles before finally making a two-hour decent to the surface of Titan. Once it lands, the dual-quadcopter will spend 2.7 years making short flights of up to 5 miles around the moon. Those flights will occur about once every Titan day, which is about 16 Earth days. The drone will be able to travel at about 20 miles per hour and reach altitudes as high as two miles. By the time its baseline mission is complete, the drone will have covered 108 miles, nearly double the distance traveled by all Mars rovers combined.

During its travels, Dragonfly will make stops to collect samples from compelling regions of Titan. Elizabeth Turtle of Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, said dune fields on the moon are particularly attractive areas for an explanation because “The material in the sand particles may be widely sourced,” meaning the drone could pick up materials from across the moon beyond where it will be able to explore.

Dragonfly’s baseline mission will conclude when it reaches an impact crater known as Selk. According to Turtle, the crater is at a low-latitude and should be accessible to the drone. “We know this area quite well, there’s a lot of data from different instruments in this region,” she said. Turtle called the crater a “high-priority target” because it’s a place where “organics and liquid water may have mixed in the past.” It’s believed that liquid water and complex organic materials including hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen — the building blocks of life — may have existed together for tens of thousands of years.

LIVE NOW: We’re announcing the next mission to study our cosmic neighborhood! Join us for a special edition of #NASAScience Live to learn about our next @NASASolarSystem explorer & ask ?s using #askNASA: https://t.co/4MvJdNylml

— NASA (@NASA) June 27, 2019

Dragonfly is the fourth mission launched through the New Frontiers program, which NASA uses to fund particularly ambitious space exploration missions throughout the Solar System. Prior missions include New Horizons, which flew by Pluto in 2015 and continues to explore the Kuiper Belt beyond it; Juno, which ventured to Jupiter and is currently continuing its mission to collect data from the gas giant; and OSIRIS-REx, which began orbiting the near-Earth asteroid Bennu earlier this year.

The company had opposed the move, claiming that it had looked into a “variety of options” for expanding access in China that would stay “consistent with our mission.”

There was also discontent over the company’s handling of sexual assault and harassment claims. CNBC noted that one worker at Verily asked Alphabet why it didn’t drop the requirement for forced arbitration at Verily and other Alphabet-owned companies beyond Google. This suggested that non-Google staff are “worth less,” he said. On a related note, one Google engineer also warned of a cultural change at Google that was leading to “thought leaders” leaving the company.

The absence of executives at the meeting didn’t help matters. Co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin didn’t attend the meeting, while CEO Sundar Pichai didn’t answer questions.

It’s not uncommon for tech companies to reject proposals and fend off questions at shareholder meetings. However, they seldom have to deal with large-scale protests from employees or deal with ethical issues that could have far-reaching social consequences. The lack of action at the meeting isn’t going to ease tensions, and might make things worse.