Ground-based lasers could accelerate spacecraft to other stars by heating hydrogen propellant to 10,000s of K. This concept is similar to nuclear-thermal propulsion (NTP), which NASA and DARPA are currently developing for rapid transit missions to Mars. 

Here are some other advantages of laser propulsion:

• No fuel: The spacecraft need not carry any fuel, vastly reducing their mass. 
• Pellet-beam propulsion: The laser would ablate some material from each pellet, propelling them at high speeds (>120 km/s) to provide thrust to the spacecraft. 
• Faster speeds: A ground-based laser array could send tiny probes across the solar system, propelling them to much faster speeds than rocket engines could. One concept is to have a staged sail, with the larger, now detached sail reflecting the laser on to the smaller sail in the opposite direction. 

By heating hydrogen propellant to 10,000s of K, the laser enables the “holy grail’ of high thrust and high specific impulse.” The concept is similar to nuclear-thermal propulsion (NTP), which NASA and DARPA are currently developing for rapid transit missions to Mars

Focused arrays of lasers – or directed energy (DE) – and lightsails are a means that is being investigated extensively – such as breakthrough shot and swarming Proxima centori. Beyond these proposals, a team from McGill University in Montreal has proposed a new type of directed energy propulsion system for exploring the Solar System. In a recent paper the team shared the early results of their laser thermal propulsion LTP) thruster facility, which suggests that the technology has the potential to provide both high thrust and specific impulse for interstellar missions.

The research team was led by gabriel r Dube an Undergraduate Research Trainee with the  (IFERG), and Associate Professor andrew higgins the Principal Investigator of the IFERG. They were joined by Emmanuel Duplay, a graduate researcher from the Technische Universiteit Delft (TU Delft); Siera Riel, a Summer Research Assistant with the IFERG; and Jason Loiseau, an Associate Professor with the Royal Military College Of Canada. The team presented their results at the 2024 AIAA Science and Technology Forum and Exposition and in a paper that appeared in the AIAA journal

A phased array of ground-based lasers could focus a light beam on the sails of spacecraft to accelerate them to a target speed within 10 minutes. The lasers could also send tiny probes across the solar system, propelling them to faster speeds than rocket engines

A phased array of ground-based lasers could accelerate spacecraft to a target speed of 100 km/s2 (10,000 ɡ) within 10 minutes. The lasers could also send small probes across the solar system, propelling them to faster speeds than rocket engines. 

Here are some details about how this could work:

• A ground-based light beamer would focus a light beam on the sails of spacecraft. 
• The beam would push ultra-light nanocrafts, which are miniature space probes attached to lightsails, to speeds of up to 100 million miles per hour. 
• The beams would accelerate the spacecraft one by one to the target speed. 
• The average acceleration would be around 100 km/s2 (10,000 ɡ). 
• The illumination energy on each sail would be around 1 TJ. 
• A 70 GW laser array could propel a spacecraft with a laser sail just under one meter (3 ft) in diameter by about 26 percent the speed of light in about 10 minutes. 
• The spacecraft could reach Alpha Centauri in only 15 years. 

Nanocrafts are gram-scale robotic spacecrafts that are driven by a light beam. They have two main parts: 

• StarChip Moore’s law has allowed a dramatic decrease in the size of microelectronic components. 
• Lightsail A meter-scale light sail, made of lightweight materials, with a gram-scale mass. Nanocrafts are expected to carry: Miniaturized cameras, Navigation gear, Communication equipment, Photon thrusters, A power supply, Sensors, A computer, Laser. 

According to Wikipedia, the StarChip robotic nanocraft could take between 20 and 30 years to reach a star system, depending on its speed. The StarChip is equipped with light sails and can travel at speeds of 20% and 15% of the speed of light. 

According to Breakthrough Initiatives, it would take tens or hundreds of millennia to reach the star system, Alpha Centauri, with current rocket propulsion technology

The ultra-light StarChip robotic nanocraft, fitted with light sails, are planned to travel at speeds of 20% and 15% of the speed of light, taking between 20 and 30 years to reach the star system, respectively, and about 4 years to notify Earth of a successful arrival

The Breakthrough Starshot project aims to design a nanocraft that can reach speeds of up to 20% of the speed of light. At this speed, it would take about 25 years to reach the Earth-sized exoplanet Proxima Centauri b, and about four years for data to travel back to Earth

The project involves using a ground-based grid of lasers to fire more than a gigawatt of laser energy into the sky. The beams converge and shine on each probe for 10 minutes, accelerating them to between 15 and 20 percent of the speed of light. 

At 20% of the speed of light, the nanocraft would be traveling at about 60,000 km/s, which is about 300 times the speed of a typical star through our galaxy

The Breakthrough Starshot project aims to accelerate nanocrafts to 20% of the speed of light in about two minutes. This would give the nanocrafts an acceleration of 60,000 times the Earth’s gravity. 

Some say that pulling a 1g payload with a 60,000g acceleration would be a huge engineering challenge. However, others say that the probe needs to be spread over the sail surface, not pulled. If the probe is spread evenly across the sail, the only force would be compressive, which wouldn’t be much force

Yuri Milner, Mark Zuckerberg, and Stephen Hawking founded Breakthrough Starshot in 2016. Milner is a Silicon Valley billionaire and entrepreneur who also funds other research projects and yearly science awards called Breakthrough Prizes

The Breakthrough Starshot initiative aims to explore deep space and discover other habitable planets. The initiative is focused on developing and testing technologies that could make interstellar travel possible in just a few decades. 

The Breakthrough Starshot program aims to demonstrate a proof-of-concept for ultra-fast, light-driven nano-spacecraft, and lay the foundations for a first launch to Alpha Centauri within the next generation. 

The initiative proposes to send a one gram solar sail to our closest star system, Alpha Centauri, to take a picture of an Earth-sized planet in the star’s habitable zone. 

The initiative also aims to bring economies of scale to the astronomical scale. The StarChip can be mass-produced at the cost of an iPhone and be sent on missions in large numbers to provide redundancy and coverage.

As of June 2023, the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative has developed a prototype of the Starshot spacecraft. The project has also established a research grant program and will support scientific and engineering research and development

The Breakthrough Starshot project aims to send nanocrafts to Proxima Centauri at speeds of over 130 million miles per hour (216 million km/h). 

The project’s nanocrafts are equipped with lightsails and can travel at speeds of up to 20% of the speed of light. At this speed, it would take about 20 years to reach the Alpha Centauri system, and another four years for the signal to be communicated back to Earth. 

However, some say that the spacecraft would be subject to catastrophic collisions with the particles in the interstellar medium at such speeds

According to Wikipedia, the first craft could launch by around 2036. Astronomy.com says that in the best-case scenario, Breakthrough Starshot might begin launching StarChips to Proxima Centauri by the mid-2030s. 

In 2017, Breakthrough Starshot launched six sprites, which are wafer-thin spacecraft that weigh the same as four US dollar bills. In 2018, 105 Sprites also flew to the ISS on the KickSat-2 mission

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