Related papers: Towards Stable Interstellar Flight: Levitation of …
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…
One proposed method for spacecraft to reach nearby stars is by accelerating sails using either solar radiation pressure or directed energy. This idea constitutes the thesis behind the Breakthrough Starshot project, which aims to accelerate…
The Breakthrough Starshot Initiative is suggested to develop the concept of propelling a nano-scale spacecraft by the radiation pressure of an intense laser beam. If such a nanocraft could be accelerated to 20 percent of light speed, it…
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…
The Breakthrough Starshot project aims to send centimeter-sized, gram-scale "StarChip" probes to Alpha Centauri at a speed of $\sim0.2c$. On the other hand, Zhang \& Li recently proposed that trans-relativistic cameras may be sent to any…
The Starshot lightsail project aims to build an ultralight spacecraft ("nanocraft") that can reach Proxima Centauri b in approximately 20 years, requiring propulsion with a relativistic velocity of ~60 000 km/s. The spacecraft's…
The structural stability of a lightsail under the laser flux necessary for interstellar flight is studied analytically and numerically. A sinusoidal perturbation is introduced into a two-dimensional thin-film sail to determine if the sail…
Breakthrough Starshot is an initiative to propel a sailcraft to Alpha Centauri within the next generation. As the sailcraft transits Alpha Centauri at 0.2 c, it looks for signs of life by imaging planets and gathering other scientific data.…
Laser sail-based spacecraft -- where a powerful earth-based laser propels a lightweight outer-space vehicle -- have been recently proposed by the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative as a means of reaching relativistic speeds for interstellar…
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…
Lightsails are a highly promising spacecraft concept that has attracted interest in recent years due to its potential to travel at near-relativistic speeds. Such speeds, which current conventional crafts cannot reach, offer tantalizing…
Lightsails are promising spacecraft that can traverse interstellar distances within decades via radiation-pressure propulsion from high-power lasers. The envisioned missions crucially rely on the sail being confined within the propelling…
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…
Laser sails propelled by gigawatt-scale ground-based laser arrays have the potential to reach relativistic speeds, traversing the solar system in hours and reaching nearby stars in years. Here, we describe the danger interplanetary dust…
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…
The stability of a light sail riding on a laser beam is analyzed both analytically and numerically. Conical sails on Gaussian beams, which have been studied in the past, are shown to be unstable without active control or additional…
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,…
In this paper, we explore from a conceptual standpoint the possibility of using natural astrophysical sources to accelerate spacecrafts to relativistic speeds. We focus on light sails and electric sails, which are reliant on momentum…
This article investigates the stability of 'laser sail'-style spacecraft constructed from dielectric metasurfaces with areal densities $<$1g/m$^2$. We show that the microscopic optical forces exerted on a metasurface by a high power laser…
Using the "statite," or static-satelite, concept -- an artificial satellite capable of hovering in place using a solar sail -- this work proposes to create a dynamic orbital slingshot in anticipation of Interstellar Objects (ISOs) passing…