Breakthrough Starshot

Breakthrough Starshot is a research and engineering project by the Breakthrough Initiatives to develop a proof-of-concept fleet of light sail spacecraft named StarChip, to be capable of making the journey to the Alpha Centauri star system 4.37 light-years away. It was founded in 2016 by Yuri Milner, Stephen Hawking, and Mark Zuckerberg. A flyby mission has been proposed to Proxima Centauri b, an Earth-sized exoplanet in the habitable zone of its host star, Proxima Centauri, in the Alpha Centauri system. At a speed between 15% and 20% of the speed of light, it would take between twenty and thirty years to complete the journey, and approximately four years for a return message from the starship to Earth. The conceptual principles to enable this interstellar travel project were described in 'A Roadmap to Interstellar Flight', by Philip Lubin of UC Santa Barbara. Sending the lightweight spacecraft involves a multi-kilometer phased array of beam-steerable lasers with a combined coherent power output of up to 100 GW. The project was announced on 12 April 2016 in an event held in New York City by physicist and venture capitalist Yuri Milner, together with cosmologist Stephen Hawking, who was serving as board member of the initiatives. Other board members include Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The project has an initial funding of US$100 million to initialize research. Milner places the final mission cost at $5–10 billion, and estimates the first craft could launch by around 2036. Pete Worden is the project's executive director and Professor Avi Loeb (Harvard University) chairs the Advisory Board for the project. Management and Advisory Committee 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. Secondary goals are: Solar System exploration and detection of Earth-crossing asteroids. The spacecraft would make a flyby of, and, possibly photograph any Earth-like worlds that might exist in the system. In August 2016, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) announced the detection of a planet orbiting the third star in the Alpha Centauri system, Proxima Centauri. The planet, called Proxima Centauri b, is orbiting within the habitable zone of its star, and it could be a potential target for one of the projects of Breakthrough Initiatives. In January 2017, Breakthrough Initiatives and the European Southern Observatory entered a collaboration to search for habitable planets in the nearby star system, Alpha Centauri. The agreement involves Breakthrough Initiatives providing funding for an upgrade to the VISIR (VLT Imager and Spectrometer for mid-Infrared) instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. This upgrade will greatly increase the likelihood of planet detection in the system.