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Dyson's Scientific Mission aboard Space Station article 6 days ago Highlights This image, taken from a data visualization, shows Arctic sea ice minimum extent on September 11, 2024. The yellow boundary shows the minimum extent averaged over the 30-year period from 1981 to 2010. 4 min read Arctic Sea Ice Near Historic Low; Antarctic Ice Continues Decline article 5 hours ago Hampton Roads flooding in Virginia 4 min read NASA Helps Build New Federal Sea Level Rise Website article 5 hours ago NASA Data Helps Protect US Embassy Staff from Polluted Air 4 min read NASA Data Helps Protect US Embassy Staff from Polluted Air article 4 days ago Highlights Learn about some of the engineering work being done by five members of NASA's Europa Clipper mission, which aims to launch Thursday, Oct. 10. 4 min read New Video Series Spotlights Engineers on NASA's Europa Clipper Mission article 1 day ago Celebrating 10 Years at Mars with NASA's MAVEN Mission 6 min read Celebrating 10 Years at Mars with NASA's MAVEN Mission article 1 day ago Amendment 51: F.13 Lunar Terrain Vehicle Instruments Program Final Text and Due Dates. 2 min read Amendment 51: F.13 Lunar Terrain Vehicle Instruments Program Final Text and Due Dates. article 1 day ago Featured Hubble Lights the Way with New Multiwavelength Galaxy View 2 min read Hubble Lights the Way with New Multiwavelength Galaxy View article 4 days ago Burst Chaser 1 min read Burst Chaser article 5 days ago NASA's Webb Provides Another Look Into Galactic Collisions 4 min read NASA's Webb Provides Another Look Into Galactic Collisions article 6 days ago Highlights Amendment 52: B.9 Low-Cost Access to Space 2028 Peruvian campaign Update 1 min read Amendment 52: B.9 Low-Cost Access to Space 2028 Peruvian campaign Update article 3 hours ago Fiona Sampson GeneLab chats image of interview. 2 min read GeneLab Chats with Fiona Samson on Her Latest Publication article 10 hours ago Image of white man, Forrest Melton, adjusting a scientific instrument 1 min read Water Resources at Ames article 22 hours ago Highlights [ksc-20240920-ph-kls01-0114] 4 min read Girls in STEM Inspired to Fly High at NASA Kennedy article 6 hours ago A graphic showing various airplanes over a sun-drenched New York City skyline. with the words "Research Opportunities" overlaid on top. 7 min read ARMD Solicitations article 4 days ago Pilot A. 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Jackson NASA Headquarters building in Washington on June 1, 2023. 4 min read NASA Expands Small Business, Industry Engagement Resources article 1 day ago Celebrating 10 Years at Mars with NASA's MAVEN Mission 6 min read Celebrating 10 Years at Mars with NASA's MAVEN Mission article 1 day ago Highlights A close up image of a set of massive solar arrays measuring about 46.5 feet (14.2 meters) long and about 13.5 feet (4.1 meters) high on NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft inside the agency's Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. 5 min read La NASA invita a los medios al lanzamiento de Europa Clipper article 3 weeks ago A man supporting the installation of the X-59 ejection seat. 3 min read El X-59 de la NASA avanza en las pruebas de preparacion para volar article 3 weeks ago Technicians tested deploying a set of massive solar arrays 7 min read La NASA invita a creadores de las redes sociales al lanzamiento de la mision Europa Clipper article 3 weeks ago 4 min read Swarming Proxima Centauri: Coherent Picospacecraft Swarms Over Interstellar Distances The headshot image of Loura Hall Loura Hall Jan 04, 2024 Article * * * * Labeled diagram of the Swarming Proxima Centauri Graphic depiction of Swarming Proxima Centauri: Coherent Picospacecraft Swarms Over Interstellar Distances Thomas Eubanks Thomas Eubanks Space Initiatives, Inc. Tiny gram-scale interstellar probes pushed by laser light are likely to be the only technology capable of reaching another star this century. We presuppose availability by mid-century of a laser beamer powerful enough (~100-GW) to boost a few grams to relativistic speed, lasersails robust enough to survive launch, and terrestrial light buckets (~1-sq.km) big enough to catch our optical signals. Then our proposed representative mission, around the third quarter of this century, is to fly by our nearest neighbor, the potentially habitable world Proxima b, with a large autonomous swarm of 1000s of tiny probes. Given extreme constraints on launch mass (grams), onboard power (milliwatts), and coms aperture (centimeters to meters), our team determined in our work over the last 3 years that only a large swarm of many probes acting in unison can generate an optical signal strong enough to cross the immense distance back to Earth. The 8-year round-trip time lag eliminates any practical control by Earth, therefore the swarm must possess an extraordinary degree of autonomy, for example, in order to prioritize which data is returned to Earth. Thus, the reader will see that coordinating the swarming of individuals into an effective whole is the dominant challenge for our representative mission to Proxima Centauri b. Coordination in turn rests on establishing a mesh network via low-power optical links and synchronizing probes' on-board clocks with Earth and with each other to support accurate position-navigation-timing (PNT). Our representative mission begins with a long string of probes launched one at a time to ~0.2c. After launch, the drive laser is used for signaling and clock synchronization, providing a continual time signal like a metronome. Initial boost is modulated so the tail of the string catches up with the head ("time on target"). Exploiting drag imparted by the interstellar medium ("velocity on target") over the 20-year cruise keeps the group together once assembled. An initial string 100s to 1000s of AU long dynamically coalesces itself over time into a lens-shaped mesh network #100,000 km across, sufficient to account for ephemeris errors at Proxima, ensuring at least some probes pass close to the target. A swarm whose members are in known spatial positions relative to each other, having state-of-the-art microminiaturized clocks to keep synchrony, can utilize its entire population to communicate with Earth, periodically building up a single short but extremely bright contemporaneous laser pulse from all of them. Operational coherence means each probe sends the same data but adjusts its emission time according to its relative position, such that all pulses arrive simultaneously at the receiving arrays on Earth. This effectively multiplies the power from any one probe by the number N of probes in the swarm, providing orders of magnitude greater data return. A swarm would tolerate significant attrition en route, mitigating the risk of "putting all your eggs in one basket," and enabling close observation of Proxima b from multiple vantage points. Fortunately, we don't have to wait until mid-century to make practical progress - we can explore and test swarming techniques now in a simulated environment, which is what we propose to do in this work. We anticipate our innovations would have a profound effect on space exploration, complementing existing techniques and enabling entirely new types of missions, for example picospacecraft swarms covering all of cislunar space, or instrumenting an entire planetary magnetosphere. Well before mid-century we foresee a number of such missions, starting in Earth or lunar orbit, but in time extending deep into the outer Solar system. For example, such a swarm could explore the rapidly receding interstellar object 1I/'Oumuamua or the solar gravitational lens. These would both be precursors to the ultimate interstellar mission, but also scientifically valuable in their own right. 2024 Phase I Selection Keep Exploring Discover More NIAC Topics Space Technology Mission Directorate [stmd] NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts [niac_magnetosphere] NIAC Funded Studies [2022_niac_ph_i_ii_selections_web_graphic_banner_final_v2] About NIAC [niac_2019_howe_troy] NASA Logo National Aeronautics and Space Administration NASA explores the unknown in air and space, innovates for the benefit of humanity, and inspires the world through discovery. * About NASA's Mission Join Us * Home * News & Events * Multimedia * NASA+ * Missions * Humans in Space * Earth & Climate * The Solar System * The Universe * Science * Aeronautics * Technology * Learning Resources * About NASA * NASA en Espanol Follow NASA * * * * * More NASA Social Accounts * NASA Newsletters * Sitemap * For Media * Privacy Policy * FOIA * No FEAR Act * Office of the IG * Budget & Annual Reports * Agency Financial Reports * Contact NASA * Accessibility * Page Last Updated: Jan 04, 2024 * Page Editor: Loura Hall * Responsible NASA Official: Abigail Bowman