Starshot
Breakthrough Starshot is a project to send nanocrafts to Alpha Centauri
Alpha Centauri, our nearest star system, is 4.37 light years away. Getting there with current technology would take 78,000 years. Breakthrough Starshot wants to get there in a lifetime.
A team of scientists and entrepreneurs, led by Russian philanthropist Yuri Milner, have announced an audacious plan to send thousands of smartphone-sized craft into orbit around the Earth and onto the stars.
12 April 2016 Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner on space exploration initiative “Starshot”
At such speeds, the microcraft would reach Pluto in three days, a feat which took Nasa's New Horizons more than nine years. After 20 years Breakthrough Starshot would reach Alpha Centauri.
Path to the stars
The research and engineering phase is expected to last a number of years. Following that, development of the ultimate mission to Alpha Centauri would require a budget comparable to the largest current scientific experiments, and would involve:
Building a ground-based kilometer-scale light beamer at high altitude in dry conditions
Generating and storing a few gigawatt hours of energy per launch
Launching a ‘mothership’ carrying thousands of nanocrafts to a high-altitude orbit
Taking advantage of adaptive optics technology in real time to compensate for atmospheric effects
Focusing the light beam on the lightsail to accelerate individual nanocrafts to the target speed within minutes
Accounting for interstellar dust collisions en route to the target
Capturing images of a planet, and other scientific data, and transmitting them back to Earth using a compact on-board laser communications system
Using the same light beamer that launched the nanocrafts to receive data from them over 4 years later.
These and other system requirements represent significant engineering challenges, and they can be reviewed in more detail online at www.breakthroughinitiatives.org. However, the key elements of the proposed system design are based on technology either already available or likely to be attainable in the near future under reasonable assumptions.
The proposed light propulsion system is on a scale significantly exceeding any currently operational analog. The very nature of the project calls for global co-operation and support.
Clearance for launches would be required from all the appropriate government and international organizations.
Additional opportunities
As the technology required for interstellar travel matures, a number of additional opportunities will emerge, including the following:
Contribution to solar system exploration.
Using the light beamer as a kilometer-scale telescope for astronomical observations.
Detection of Earth-crossing asteroids at large distances.
Potential Planets in the Alpha Centauri system
Astronomers estimate that there is a reasonable chance of an Earth-like planet existing in the ‘habitable zones’ of Alpha Centauri’s three-star system. A number of scientific instruments, ground-based and space-based, are being developed and enhanced, which will soon identify and characterize planets around nearby stars.
A separate Breakthrough Initiative will support some of these projects.
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