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    • FOCAL space mission to 550 AU and beyond: 2010 status review

    Paper number

    IAC-10.D4.2.2

    Author

    Dr. Claudio Maccone, International Academy of Astronautics (IAA), Italy

    Year

    2010

    Abstract
    This paper presents a 2010 status review of the “FOCAL” space mission studied by this author since 1992 and formally proposed to the European Space Agency (ESA) in 2000. 

The FOCAL probe is intended to reach distances between 550 and 1000 AU in order to exploit the huge radio and visual magnifications provided there by the gravitational lens of the Sun, as predicted by the general theory of relativity.
 
The alignment between the source (any star), the center of the Sun and the FOCAL spacecraft turns out to be quite strict (a few hundred kilometers at 550 AU), and so it will be necessary to send a FOCAL probe in the opposite sky direction for each stellar system that we wish to observe.
 
Nevertheless, it plainly appears that it will be far easier to send a FOCAL spacecraft to a distance of just 550 AU before humanity ever embarked in a truly interstellar mission to even the closest stars. In fact, the minimal distance of 550 AU still is 277 times smaller than 4.37 light-years, or, in other words, assuming equal engineering problems, FOCAL will take about 277 times less than the time to reach Alpha Centauri. This key advantage of FOCAL over truly interstellar missions makes the Sun focus a reasonable target for our probes to reach by virtue of present-day technology rather than by hypothetical future “Star Trek” dreams.   

This paper describes the gravitational lens of the Sun and an updated 2010 status review of the FOCAL space mission including:

1)	The technical content of the new 2009 book by the author about the FOCAL space mission, entitled “Deep Space Flight and Communications”. 

2)	The possible adoption of a “relativistic hyperbolic motion” mission profile, i.e. a relativistic constant-spacecraft-acceleration profile capable of reducing the FOCAL mission time at best.

3)	The utilization of the relativistic KLT (Karhunen-Loève Transform) instead of the classical FFT to insure optimal telecommunications with the Earth during such a relativistic-hyperbolic-motion flight to 550 AU and beyond.  

Keywords:  Sun gravitational lens, space probe, special relativity, propulsion, telecommunications.
    Abstract document

    IAC-10.D4.2.2.brief.pdf

    Manuscript document

    IAC-10.D4.2.2.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).

    To get the manuscript, please contact IAF Secretariat.