NASA is preparing to explore Proxima Centauri with thousands of miniature probes
The mission to Proxima Centauri will usher in a new era in the history of astronautics.
Humanity has long dreamed of traveling to other star systems and landing on alien worlds. According to the article on the site Universe Today , even with modern technology, it would take the spacecraft between 19,000 and 81,000 years to reach Proxima Centauri. In addition, traveling through interstellar space involves a number of risks.
Under these conditions, it appears that the only realistic way to reach neighboring stars this century is through tiny laser-powered spacecraft. One of the proposed projects is Swarming Proxima Centauri, developed by Space Initiatives Inc. and the Initiative for Interstellar Exploration (i4is), led by Space Initiatives Chief Scientist Marshall Eubanks. The project has been selected for development under NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program for this year.
Marshall Eubanks explains that traveling through interstellar space is a matter of distance, energy and speed. The record for the longest flight was set by the Voyager 1 spacecraft, which covered more than 24 billion kilometers in 46 years. For interstellar transitions at speeds less than relative (a fraction of the speed of light), small spacecraft weighing only a few grams are needed.
The proposal involves building a 100-gigawatt laser accelerator that would accelerate thousands of miniature probes with laser sails to relative speeds (about 10-20% of the speed of light). It is estimated that the mission concept could be ready for development by mid-century and reach Proxima Centauri and its Earth-like exoplanet (Proxima b) by the third quarter of this century (2075 or later).
Eubanks and his colleagues showed how a fleet of thousands of spacecraft could overcome the challenges of interstellar travel and maintaining communications with Earth using swarm dynamics. However, an eight-year delay in communications due to interstellar distances and general relativity makes it impossible to remotely control the probes from Earth. Therefore, the swarm must have a high degree of autonomy in navigation and selection of data to send to Earth.
The biggest cost would be the laser facility, while miniature spacecraft would be relatively cheap to produce. The proposal could be developed with a budget of $100 billion, Eubanks said. He emphasizes that a mission to send a swarm of probes to Proxima Centauri has enormous potential.
In addition, the development of a coordinated swarm of robotic probes may find application in more related problems. Swarm robotics is a promising area of research that is seen as a possible way to explore Europa’s internal ocean, build underground cities on Mars, assemble large structures in space, and monitor extreme weather conditions from Earth orbit.
Besides space exploration and earth observation, swarm robotics also has applications in medicine, value-added manufacturing, environmental research, global positioning and navigation, search and rescue, and other fields.
Although it may be many decades before an interstellar mission is ready to travel to Alpha Centauri, Eubanks and his colleagues are proud and excited to be among those selected for NASA’s 2024 NIAC program. The research took many years, but it is now closer to fruition than ever.
