1 gram solar sail project

[fred2014]

I'm just curious about the project to send a 1 gram solar sail accelerated to a significant percentage of light speed

in order to "image" a planet?

 

The project reminds me of a scene in the UK TV series "UFO" where they sent a camera out

and were amazed at the results ... until that is they realised they had no measure of perspective

or distance or size. What they were looking at could have been anything.

 

Is this 1 gram spacecraft going to have this issue or has that been worked out somehow?

I'm also curious about what material could withstand the space dust and other particles out there

at those velocities.

 

Is this project really useful or is it a gimmick?

What sort of data do we expect to get.

(No doubt there would be some we didn't expect - that's the real fun part I guess)

 

 

 

[Fuzzwood]

If you have a few of these and know their relative position and orientation toward each other, perspective will become less of an issue.

[swansont]

I'm just curious about the project to send a 1 gram solar sail accelerated to a significant percentage of light speed

in order to "image" a planet?

 

 

 

!

Moderator Note

A link would be helpful and appropriate here. Not everyone who might be interested will be familiar with this project.

[Strange]

https://breakthroughinitiatives.org/Initiative/3

 

The project reminds me of a scene in the UK TV series "UFO" where they sent a camera out

and were amazed at the results ... until that is they realised they had no measure of perspective

or distance or size. What they were looking at could have been anything.

 

Is this 1 gram spacecraft going to have this issue or has that been worked out somehow?

 

Why would this be any different from the many other space probes we have sent to various planets, moons and comets? They seem to have a good handle on what they are looking at.

[Airbrush]

Very interesting. I always wanted to know how small a space probe could possibly be so that a minimal mass could be accelerated to very high speeds by various methods or more than one propulsion method.

[fred2014]

You're right swansont - sorry - I should have thought to post a link.

(thanks strange - I didn't have a link - I just read the brief news report at the time)

 

Given the size of modern tech (I have some microchip PIC microcontrolers here

about the size of a text full stop with features I find amazing) and low power use

of same - I can see why this is considered a "potentially do-able" project.

 

I'm willing to bet right now the final design goes to 5 gramms

and the lazer L5 based, but still - amazing and potentially useful.

 

The fact there are so many challenges - all interesting and potentially solvable

makes the whole venture compelling.

https://breakthroughinitiatives.org/Initiative/3

 

 

Why would this be any different from the many other space probes we have sent to various planets, moons and comets? They seem to have a good handle on what they are looking at.

 

The probes we use "locally" now, have enough space to carry the required instrumentation.

 

With the payload size so low my guess is you need to be able to provide survival tech. that takes up

most resources. Then you need to do something when you get there and then send some info back.

Thats a lot of function in 1 gram.

 

Lets say you could take a photo from a few killometers out - without knowing the scale you have no way of knowing if it is

a photo of a city - a cloud formation - or a grain of wheat. You need more information than the photo

itself to work that out - and that means more instrumentation no matter how simple.

 

My design would be to send 5 units out at the same time. (Good point fuzzwood)

That would take negligable extra resources and provide scope for all manner of things.

Edited September 29, 2016 by fred2014

[Airbrush]

Most likely the first probes to explore neighboring star systems will be flybys because that is the cheapest way.

 

You need a propulsion method to get a relatively lightweight probe going at significant speed. Maybe nuclear pulse propulsion or something else. If we know the speed of the probe and the exact size of the star or planet it is approaching, we can tell scales based on how the size of the star or planet changes from one photo to another on the approach. However it won't be for 100 years or more before we see any photos.

[fred2014]

Airbrush

 

A flyby only has value if it can return some sort of data.

(actually - not true - the ability to do it is worthwhile ... But you see my point I think)

 

In this case the power source is already sorted and the basic specs done.

The idea is specifically to use a solar sail.

 

In fact the more I think about this the more I'm thinking in terms of a

"swarm" of these things being a good idea. (assuming we discount

the idea of face eating little green men spotting them)

 

In fact perhaps we should already have "seen" laser light out there - I wonder why not.

 

Anyway - This seems a real practical project and the first I've been really

interested in since 1969.