NASA's mission to Proxima Centauri

NASA has proposed a hopeful and epic mission, because it has selected a bold proposal, they have described it as such, to send a fleet of mini ships to the closest star to the solar system, which is Proxima Centauri, which is 4.25 light years away, which In addition, where we know that there is at least one rocky exoplanet, similar in size to the Earth.

With current technology, traveling to another star is a Mission Impossible, impossible on the scale of human life, a normal spacecraft would take in the best of cases around 5000 years to reach the next centauri with current propulsion systems, but the proposal that NASA approved is not to make a trip with normal ships, as described by Thomas Eubanksde of Space initiatives, it would consist of sending a swarm, a colony of thousands of tiny probes, each one would be equipped with a light sail or candle solar, and would be driven by a laser beam of at least 100 Gigawatts of power.

Today we still do not have a laser of such power, but it is expected that it can be developed in the coming years, that group would form a group of ships like the one shown in the image above, that swarm of mini ships or mini probes would be launched in a chain between 100 to 1000 astronomical units long, which is a beast, said in kilometers it would be between 15,000 million kilometers to 150,000 million kilometers, but despite launching them in that form of chain to have greater thrust, the swarm with the Over time it would end up merging until creating a lens-shaped network about 100,000 km wide, which is more or less what is shown in the image.

The trip would only last about 20 years, so in just over 24 years we would have the first direct data from another star system, but to do this thousands would have to be launched, because it is suspected that many would be lost due to the trip, launching so many satellites. guarantees that some reach the target, secondly, there is the problem that they are mini probes, very small of just a few grams, otherwise they could be pushed by the laser, this means that their ability to be equipped with powerful cameras and scientific equipment is extremely limited.

Since their ability to send data from 4.25 light years will also be very limited, they would also have to be equipped with Artificial Intelligence and a great capacity for autonomy because any instruction we would like to send would take years to reach them. In fact, we currently do not have technology to create a similar probe and what is worse, there is no guarantee that any probe can make a flyby over the known exoplanet, it will surely pass millions of kilometers away, so in the best case scenario we would have 25 years Then it would be a photo of a distant point of light, something that we could even achieve today with the James Webb Space Telescope or we could even get better images with more powerful telescopes like those that are being designed for the coming years.

In conclusion, the mission has an exciting epic approach. We can send a terrestrial probe to another star, but the results due to the limited nature of these small ships would be very poor and when I say flyby, it means that it would pass by, they would not be able to slow down, they would not be able to start. orbit that planet, they couldn't even put that star in orbit, so this plan is designed to be applied in the 1950s, when the technology to create a powerful laser and also these mini probes is developed.

I hope that by that time more powerful propulsion systems will have been developed that will allow us to carry a probe or a larger and more well-equipped exploration ship, even with the capacity for artificial intelligence and autonomy to detect that planet and go into orbit around it. to him and thus collect a greater amount of data.

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