Interstellar Now! Missions to Explore Nearby Interstellar Objects

Hein, Andreas M.; Eubanks, T. M.; Lingam, Manasvi; Hibberd, Adam; Fries, Dan; Kervella, P.; Kennedy, Robert G.; Perakis, Nikolaos; Dachwald, Bernd

doi:10.1016/j.asr.2021.06.052

Cited by 18 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…Furthermore, the LTPS as described here could be used as a solar-thermal spacecraft with little modification. A solar Oberth maneuver could be performed with the same spacecraft, potentially enabling the flyby of interstellar objects such as 1I/'Oumuamua [60,61]. Finally, this architecture is also suitable for interstellar precursor missions, such as placing a spacecraft at the solar gravitational focus.…”

Section: Alternative Missionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design of a rapid transit to Mars mission using laser-thermal propulsion

et al. 2022

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The application of directed energy to spacecraft mission design is explored using rapid transit to Mars as the design objective. An Earth-based laser array of unprecedented size (10 m diameter) and power (100 MW) is assumed to be enabled by ongoing developments in photonic laser technology. A phased-array laser of this size and incorporating atmospheric compensation would be able to deliver laser power to spacecraft in cislunar space, where the incident laser is focused into a hydrogen heating chamber via an inflatable reflector. The hydrogen propellant is then exhausted through a nozzle to realize specific impulses of 3000 s. The architecture is shown to be immediately reusable via a burn-back maneuver to return the propulsion unit while still within range of the Earth-based laser. The ability to tolerate much greater laser fluxes enables realizing the combination of high thrust and high specific impulse, making this approach favorable in comparison to laser-electric propulsion and occupying a parameter space similar to gas-core nuclear thermal rockets (without the requisite reactor). The heating chamber and its associated regenerative cooling and propellant handling systems are crucial elements of the design that receive special attention in this study. The astrodynamics and the extreme aerocapture maneuver required at Mars arrival after a 45-day transit are also analyzed in detail. The application of laser-thermal propulsion as an enabling technology for other rapid transit missions in the solar system and beyond is discussed.

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Section: Alternative Missionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design of a rapid transit to Mars mission using laser-thermal propulsion

et al. 2022

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“…Clearly cometary ISOs like 2I/Borisov, if discovered inbound, present the best chances of success for interception, while the available warning times for another small 1I/'Oumuamua-like object, with no visible coma, remain impractically short even with LSST (one or two months at best). There are suggestions to launch missions to chase after departing ISOs, catching up to them at very large distance from the Sun (100 au or more) decades after their perihelion, but these are limited by both available spacecraft technology (propulsion, power, communications) and the navigation and operational practicalities of even locating such a small object so far from the Sun while approaching at tens of km s −1 (Hein et al 2019(Hein et al , 2022. Such a mission does not appear feasible in the near term.…”

Section: Interstellar Objectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Past and Future Comet Missions

Snodgrass¹,

Feaga²,

Jones³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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We review the history of spacecraft encounters with comets, concentrating on those that took place in the recent past, since the publication of the Comets II book. This includes the flyby missions Stardust and Deep Impact, and their respective extended missions, the Rosetta rendezvous mission, and serendipitous encounters. While results from all of these missions can be found throughout this book, this chapter focuses on the questions that motivated each mission, the technologies that were required to answer these questions, and where each mission opened new areas to investigate. There remain a large number of questions that will require future technologies and space missions to answer; we also describe planned next steps and routes forward that may be pursued by missions that have yet to be selected, and eventually lead to cryogenic sample return of nucleus ices for laboratory study.

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“…Proposals exist for missions that are prepared and wait in storage for the discovery of a suitable object, either on Earth, or the sun-earth L2 point. Even though fly-by missions are significantly easier, a lander using solar-electric propulsion could be feasible (Hein, Eubanks, et al 2022). A landed mission would bear similarity to Philae on the ESA Rosetta mission and could do seismic or acoustic investigations to constrain subsurface properties either during landing Biele et al 2015 or by listening to seismic waves excited during operation of a drill or similar instrument (Knapmeyer, Fischer, Knollenberg, Seidensticker, Thiel, Arnold, Schmidt, et al 2016;Knapmeyer, Fischer, Knollenberg, Seidensticker, Thiel, Arnold, Faber, et al 2018).…”

Section: Mission Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%