If we are going to do this, the we may as well launch sixty four such craft out to all points of the celestial sphere and also integrate targeting for advanced resolution. We have already proven we can do something like this with voyager.
Best yet, we may also be able to close map our own solar environment in decent detail and surely count all objects in the kuiper belt as well.
We may also be able to track millions of objects and their projected orbits. This is well worth going for and will keep folks busy for generations.
sooner or later, we have to go all in on this.
Exploring the Galaxy is Possible With Small Telescopes Placed 20 Times Further Than Neptune
March 8, 2024 by Brian Wang
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2024/03/exploring-the-galaxy-is-possible-with-small-telescopes-placed-20-times-further-than-neptune.html#more-193764
Space startup Xplore Solar Sail spacecraft design would go seven times faster than the Voyager spacecraft to enable vastly improved exploration of the solar system. The initial design would be to get to 5AU/year speeds but we need to improve it to 40 AU/year speeds. The goal would be to reach 550-650 AU where the gravitational lens areas. The solar gravitational lens (SGL) uses light focused by the Sun’s gravity and improve telescope capabilities by 100 billion times.
The new SunVane concept uses multiple sails, making it easier to package and more controllable in flight. Centauri Dreams desscribes the ‘Lightcraft’ design out of Xplore Inc. as next step in solar sail evolution. The design could open up the outer system to microsat missions of all kinds.
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Using the SGL is by far the best and most practical way we can ever get a high-resolution, multi-pixel image of an Earth-like exoplanet and determine if they are potentially habitable. Details of a novel mission design starting with a rideshare launch from the Earth, spiraling in toward the Sun, and then flying around it to achieve solar system exit speeds of over 20 AU/year. A new sailcraft design is used to make possible high area to mass ratio for the sailcraft. The mission design enables other fast solar system missions, starting with a proposed very low cost technology demonstration mission (TDM) to prove the functionality and operation of the microsat-solar sail design and then, building on the TDM, missions to explore distant regions of the solar system, and those to study Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) and the recently discovered interstellar objects (ISOs) are also possible.
The steps:
– A Lightcraft Demonstration Mission to exercise and prove the technology of an interplanetary microsat sailcraft to exit the solar system faster than any previous vehicle, with goal of 5–6 AU/year. The mission would carry only popular interest payloads and partner with NASA. Total mass of sailcraft ≈ 6 kg
– A solar system mission, possibly to rendezvous with a newly discovered interstellar object to another small body in or beyond the asteroid belt. Velocity goal of > 7 AU/year, with science payload < 10 kg. – Exoplanet Observers – mission capability to reach the focal line of the solar gravity lens in < 25 years. Exoplanet imaging with the SGL using 1–2 meter coronagraph/telescope, optical communications, small radioisotope power, electric micro-thrusters A 2021 copy of the full report is here.
A sail of 100 X 100 square meters is about as large as we are able to work with in the near term.
Pushing out interstellar boundaries also means pushing materials science hard. The sail needs to be as thin as one micron, with a density less than 1 gram per square meter. The kind of sail would be 10 kg that would move a 40 kg spacecraft. The payload would need to take solar flux at 0.1 AU is 100 times what we receive on Earth. The close pass to the Sun is needed to swing near and then out to get more speed.
In 2022, Xplore received $16.2 million in funding to date and has over $4 million in NASA and other grants. Space sector investors include: Alumni Ventures, Brightstone Venture Capital, KittyHawk Ventures, Private Shares Fund, Starbridge Venture Capital, Helios Capital, Lombard Street and Gaingels. Notable investors also include Tremendous View, Kingfisher Capital and Dylan Taylor – commercial astronaut and CEO of Voyager Space.
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