An Interstellar mission is being considered by NASA

The Interstellar Probe, if launched, would be the first spacecraft to venture beyond Kuiper Belt

A Few weeks ago, I wrote about the second-ever interstellar object to be detected crossing our solar system. C/2019 Q4 (Borisov) — named after the amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov of Ukraine, the newly discovered comet will stick around for another few months giving astronomers ample time to study it in detail.

The premier space agency of the World, NASA, is now planning to explicitly send out an interstellar mission of its own by as early as 2030. This would be the first endeavor of its kind since Voyager 1, which was launched on Sep. 05, 1977. The first-ever spacecraft to reach interstellar space in 2012, Voyager 1, after surveying the Jupiter and Saturn systems, is currently exploring beyond our solar system. Voyager 2, on the other hand, continues to operate & explore the edge of our solar system.

While we have have been successful in gaining useful knowledge about our own solar system, unlocking the mysteries of the deep expanse of the interstellar space is still a pipe dream for us. But an ongoing study by a team of researchers is adamant to challenge the boundaries of science fiction to make this into a reality.

The Interstellar Probe was started last summer by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory under the auspices of NASA’s Heliophysics division. One year later and the researchers are ironing out the Engineering details of such a mission. The team is planning to submit its detailed plan to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Heliophysics decadal survey by the end of 2021 to determine its feasibility.

The idea behind this interstellar mission to send out a lightweight spacecraft, weighing about 1,700 pounds on NASA’s massive Space Launch System rocket — expected to be ready to by 2021. While the latter would provide the initial boost to launch the probe into space, it will then use the gravity to slingshot itself into deep space at speeds of over 100,000 miles per hour.

The team is looking into two ways to provide the ‘gravity assists’ for the probe. The two contenders to provide the gravity assist is the gas giant Jupiter & our very own Sun. Using the latter is much more advantageous since the slingshot momentum provided by the star would be much higher than Jupiter's.

“We’re sitting inside a bubble trying to figure out what shape it is, which is extremely hard. The uniqueness of an interstellar probe is that we can go out and take a picture of our habitable little bubble in space.” ~ Pontus Brandt, Team Researcher

The only hiccup though is that the probe would have to move closer to the Sun than even the Parker Solar Probe — the closest human-made object to pass the star. This, of course, would require providing some serious heat shielding, which can make the probe bulkier. The researchers are trying to find the right spot where they can provide the maximum impetus to the probe without compromising the integrity of the spacecraft.

The eventual goal of the interstellar probe is to launch a spacecraft that can last 50 years & travel a distance of 92 billion miles — 1,000x the distance between the Earth & the Sun. Compare this to Voyager 1 & 2 — which are currently 13 billion miles away from Earth and have been venturing into space for more than 42 years now. The new probe can cover this distance in less than 15 years!

The interstellar probe will have a bunch of advanced instruments to study the interstellar space. Astronomers are particularly interested in the heliosphere (picture above)— a bubble of space sustained by the pressure from the solar wind. Between the interstellar space & the heliosphere is a semipermeable boundary, known as the heliopause. Beyond heliopause, the sun’s particles become scarce & particles from the rest of Milky way galaxy dominate.

This area of influence beyond the solar winds of the Sun has always been a mystery to scientists. The interstellar probe might yet provide the best opportunity to solving some of the longstanding mysteries of the deep space.