Related papers: Low-cost precursor of an interstellar mission
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…
At a distance of about 4.22 lightyears, it would take about 100,000 years for humans to visit our closest stellar neighbor Proxima Centauri using modern chemical thrusters. New technologies are now being developed that involve high-power…
The Breakthrough Initiatives Project Starshot proposes to send a gram-scale laser driven spacecraft to the Alpha Centauri system in a 20 year mission travelling at v=0.2c. One of the challenges of this mission as the spacecraft moves…
New means of interstellar travel are now being considered by various research teams, assuming lightweight spaceships to be accelerated via either laser or solar radiation to a significant fraction of the speed of light (c). We recently…
Laser-accelerated lightsails enable new types of missions that are very different from the Breakthrough Starshot mission to the Centauri system that aims to send 1 gram of payload at 0.2 c. The present work widens the mission design space…
The ability to launch small secondary payloads to Mars on future science missions present an exciting opportunity for demonstration of advanced technologies for planetary exploration such as aerocapture. Over the years, several aerocapture…
The Solar Gravitational Lens (SGL) enables resolved imaging and spectroscopy of nearby terrestrial exoplanets, but useful science begins only after a spacecraft reaches roughly 650-900 astronomical units (AU). A 20 yr lower-bound trip to…
Breakthrough Starshot is an initiative to prove ultra-fast light-driven nanocrafts, and lay the foundations for a first launch to Alpha Centauri within the next generation. Along the way, the project could generate important supplementary…
Space exploration is of paramount importance to advancing fundamental science and providing global services, such as navigation and communications. However, today's space missions are hindered by limitations of existing propulsion…
The authors describe the general motion of radiation-pushed sails accelerated near the speed of light with directed energy propulsion. Practical applications of the model are also given, including the interstellar flyby mission to the Alpha…
Microwave propelled sails are a new class of spacecraft using photon acceleration. It is the only method of interstellar flight that has no physics issues. Laboratory demonstrations of basic features of beam-driven propulsion, flight,…
A spacecraft pushed by radiation has the major advantage that the power source is not included in the accelerated mass, making it the preferred technique for reaching relativistic speeds. There are two main technical challenges. First, to…
A propulsion concept in which a spacecraft interacts with high-velocity pellets and the interstellar medium is proposed. The pellets are slower than the spacecraft and are accelerated backwards as they are overtaken, imparting a forward…
In this paper it is presented the concept and design of a new type of spacecraft that could be used to make the first manned interstellar travel. Solar one would integrate three near-term technologies, namely: compact nuclear fusion…
In the nearly 60 years of spaceflight we have accomplished wonderful feats of exploration that have shown the incredible spirit of the human drive to explore and understand our universe. Yet in those 60 years we have barely left our solar…
A new electrostatic ramjet space engine is proposed and analyzed. The upper atmosphere (85 -1000 km) is extremely dense in ions (millions per cubic cm). The interplanetary medium contains positive protons from the solar wind. A charged ball…
A technique by which a spacecraft can interact with flows of ionized gas in space (the solar wind or interstellar medium) to be accelerated to velocities greater than the wind velocity is explored. Inspired by the dynamic soaring maneuvers…
Spacecraft kinematics, peak perihelion temperature and space environment effects during solar-radiation-pressure acceleration for a beryllium hollow-body interstellar solar sail inflated with hydrogen fill gas are investigated. We…
We show that photophoretic aircraft would greatly benefit from a three-dimensional (3D) hollow geometry that pumps ambient air through sidewalls to create a high-speed jet. To identify optimal geometries, we developed a theoretical…
The Breakthrough Starshot initiative aims to launch a gram-scale spacecraft to a speed of $v\sim 0.2$c, capable of reaching the nearest star system, $\alpha$ Centauri, in about 20 years. However, a critical challenge for the initiative is…