Related papers: The Breakthrough Starshot System Model
The detection of Earth-like exoplanets in the habitable zone of their stars, and their spectroscopic characterization in a search for biosignatures, requires starlight suppression that exceeds the current best ground-based performance by…
The design of a downlink communication system for returning scientific data from an interstellar flyby probe is reviewed in this tutorial white paper. It its assumed that the probe is ballistic, and data is downloaded during a period…
The Antarctic TianMu Staring Observation Program is a time-domain optical sky survey project carried out in Antarctica, capable of large sky coverage, high-cadence sampling, and long-period staring. It utilizes the exceptional observing…
The primary challenge of rocket propulsion is the burden of needing to accelerate the spacecraft's own fuel, resulting in only a logarithmic gain in maximum speed as propellant is added to the spacecraft. Light sails offer an attractive…
At the far reaches of the outer Solar System, the ice giants remain the last class of planets yet to be studied using orbiters. The 2023-2032 Planetary Science Decadal Survey has underscored the importance of the ice giants in understanding…
The solar gravitational lens (SGL) provides a factor of $10^{11}$ amplification for viewing distant point sources beyond our solar system. As such, it may be used for resolved imaging of extended sources, such as exoplanets, not possible…
A key challenge for starshades is formation flying. To successfully image exoplanets, the telescope boresight and starshade must be aligned to ~1 m at separations of tens of thousands of kilometers. This challenge has two parts: first, the…
Balloon-borne astronomy is a unique tool that allows for a level of image stability and significantly reduced atmospheric interference without the often prohibitive cost and long development time-scale that are characteristic of space-borne…
With interstellar mission concepts now being under study by various space agencies and institutions, a feasible and worthy interstellar precursor mission concept will be key to the success of the long shot. Here we investigate…
The miniaturization of electronics, sensors and actuators has enabled the growing use of CubeSats and sub-20 kg spacecraft. Their reduced mass and volume has the potential to translate into significant reductions in required propellant and…
We propose an experiment, the Cosmic Accelerometer, designed to yield velocity precision of $\leq 1$ cm/s with measurement stability over years to decades. The first-phase Cosmic Accelerometer, which is at the scale of the Astro2020 Small…
The search for biosignatures in potentially habitable exoplanets is one of the major astrophysics' drivers for the coming decades, and the prime science goal of the HWO NASA mission, a large UV-Optical-IR space telescope to be launched in…
One proposed method for finding terrestrial planets around nearby stars is to use two spacecraft--a telescope and a specially shaped occulter that is specifically designed to prevent all but a tiny fraction of the starlight from diffracting…
We present a framework for the analysis of direct detection planet finding missions using space telescopes. This framework generates simulations of complete missions, with varying populations of planets, to produce ensembles of mission…
Many high contrast coronagraph designs have recently been proposed. In this paper, their suitability for direct imaging of extrasolar terrestrial planets is reviewed. We also develop a linear-algebra based model of coronagraphy that can…
PILOT (the Pathfinder for an International Large Optical Telescope is a proposed 2.5 m optical/infrared telescope to be located at DomeC on the Antarctic plateau. The atmospheric conditions at Dome C deliver a high sensitivity, high…
Voyager 3 is a concept mission that sends a space telescope to the interstellar medium in a reasonable amount of time. Voyager 3 would take a direct image of an exoplanet using the solar gravitational lensing at the distance of 550…
We propose a coronagraphic system with fourth-order null for off-axis segmented telescopes, which is sufficiently insensitive to the telescope pointing errors and finite angular diameter of the host star to enable high-contrast imaging of…
UV-SCOPE is a mission concept to determine the causes of atmospheric mass loss in exoplanets, investigate the mechanisms driving aerosol formation in hot Jupiters, and study the influence of the stellar environment on atmospheric evolution…
THESEUS is a space mission concept aimed at exploiting Gamma-Ray Bursts for investigating the early Universe and at providing a substantial advancement of multi-messenger and time-domain astrophysics. These goals will be achieved through a…