Project Daedalus

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For other uses, see Daedalus Project (disambiguation).
Daedalus spacecraft concept

Project Daedalus (named after

light years
away. The trip was estimated to take 50 years, but the design was required to be flexible enough that it could be sent to any other target star.

All the papers produced by the study are available in a BIS book, Project Daedalus: Demonstrating the Engineering Feasibility of Interstellar Travel.[2]

Concept

Daedalus would be constructed in Earth orbit and have an initial mass of 54,000

cryogenic temperatures. A major stimulus for the project was Friedwardt Winterberg's inertial confinement fusion drive concept,[1][3] for which he received the Hermann Oberth gold medal award.[4]

This velocity is well beyond the capabilities of

interstellar ramjet's problems are tenuous interstellar medium with a density of about 1 atom/cm3, a large diameter funnel, and high power required for its electric field. Thus the only suitable propulsion method for the project was thermonuclear pulse propulsion.[5][6][7]

Daedalus would be propelled by a

hot-air balloon supported robotic factories over a 20-year period, or from a less distant source, such as the Moon.[8]

The second stage would have two 5-metre

ion drives and would carry cameras, spectrometers
, and other sensory equipment. The sub-probes would fly past their targets, still travelling at 12% of the speed of light, and transmit their findings back to the Daedalus' second stage, mothership, for relay back to Earth.

The ship's payload bay containing its sub-probes, telescopes, and other equipment would be protected from the interstellar medium during transit by a beryllium disc, up to 7 mm thick, weighing up to 50 tonnes. This erosion shield would be made from beryllium due to its lightness and high latent heat of vaporisation. Larger obstacles that might be encountered while passing through the target system would be dispersed by an artificially generated cloud of particles, ejected by support vehicles called dust bugs about 200 km ahead of the vehicle. The spacecraft would carry a number of robot wardens capable of autonomously repairing damage or malfunctions.

Specifications

Overall length: 190 metres

Payload mass: 450 tonnes

First stage: Second stage:
Empty mass: 1,690 tonnes (at staging) 980 tonnes (at cruise speed)
Propellant mass: 46,000 tonnes 4,000 tonnes
Engine burn time: 2.05 years 1.76 years
Thrust: 7,540,000 newtons 663,000 newtons
Engine exhaust velocity: 10,600,000 m/s 9,210,000 m/s
Delta-V 35,000,000 m/s (0.117c) 13,000,000 m/s (0.0432c)

Variants

A quantitative engineering analysis of a

lightspeed
.

Another possibility is to equip the Daedalus with a magnetic sail similar to the magnetic scoop on a Bussard ramjet to use the destination star heliosphere as a brake, making carrying deceleration fuel unnecessary, allowing a much more in-depth study of the star system chosen.

See also

Further reading

  • K. F. Long (2012). "Project Daedalus". Deep Space Propulsion: A Roadmap to Interstellar Flight.
    ISBN 9781461406075
    .

References

  1. ^ a b Project Daedalus Study Group: A. Bond et al., Project Daedalus – The Final Report on the BIS Starship Study, JBIS Interstellar Studies, Supplement 1978
  2. ^ A. Bond et al., Project Daedalus: Demonstrating the Engineering Feasibility of Interstellar Travel
  3. ^ F. Winterberg, "Rocket propulsion by thermonuclear microbombs ignited with intense relativistic electron beams", Raumfahrtforschung 15, 208-217 (1971).
  4. ^ Winterberg is Hermann Oberth Gold Medalist, Physics Today, December 1979
  5. ^ Project Daedalus: The Propulsion System Part 1; Theoretical considerations and calculations. 2. Review of Advanced Propulsion Systems Archived 2013-06-28 at the Wayback Machine
  6. ^ Title: Project Daedalus. Authors: Bond, A.; Martin, A. R. Publication: Journal of the British Interplanetary Society Supplement, p. S5–S7 Publication Date: 00/1978 Origin: ARI ARI Keywords: Miscellanea, Philosophical Aspects, Extraterrestrial Life Comment: A&AA ID. AAA021.015.025 Bibliographic Code: 1978JBIS...31S...5B
  7. ^ Project Daedalus — Origins
  8. ^ Helium-3#Extraterrestrial abundance
  9. Bibcode:1980JBIS...33..251F
    .

External links

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