Breakthrough Starshot is Now Looking for the Companies to Build its Laser-Powered Solar Sails to Other Stars

By Matthew Williams June 7, 2018
Breakthrough Starshot is Now Looking for the Companies to Build its Laser-Powered Solar Sails to Other Stars

"Starshot is an initiative to send a probe to the nearest star system at a fifth of the speed of light so that it will get there within a human lifetime of a couple of decades. The goal is to obtain photos of exo-planets like Proxima b, which is in the habitable zone of the nearest star Proxima Centauri, four light years away. The technology adopted for fulfilling this challenge uses a powerful (100 Giga-watt) laser beam pushing on a lightweight (1 gram) sail to which a lightweight electronics chip is attached (with a camera, navigation and communication devices). The related technology development is currently funded at $100M by Yuri Milner through the Breakthrough Foundation."

"The scope of this RFP addresses the Technology Development phase - to explore LightSail concepts, materials, fabrication and measurement methods, with accompanying analysis and simulation that creates advances toward a viable path to a scalable and ultimately deployable LightSail."

Matthew Williams

Matthew Williams

Matt Williams is a space journalist, science communicator, and author with several published titles and studies. His work is featured in The Ross 248 Project and Interstellar Travel edited by NASA alumni Les Johnson and Ken Roy. He also hosts the podcast series Stories from Space at ITSP Magazine. He lives in beautiful British Columbia with his wife and family. For more information, check out his website.