In Quest to Reach Alpha Centauri, Breakthrough Starshot Launches World’s Smallest Spacecraft
“Breakthrough Starshot, a multi-faceted program to develop and launch practical interstellar space missions, successfully flew its first spacecraft — the smallest ever launched. On June 23, a number of prototype “Sprites” – the world’s smallest fully functional space probes, built on a single circuit board — achieved Low Earth Orbit, piggybacking on OHB System AG’s ‘Max Valier’ and ‘Venta’ satellites. The 3.5-by-3.5 centimeter chips weigh just four grams but contain solar panels, computers, sensors, and radios. These vehicles are the next step of a revolution in spacecraft miniaturization that can contribute to the development of centimeter- and gram-scale “StarChips” envisioned by the Breakthrough Starshot project.”
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Biologist, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Biologist and Payload integrator, Editor of NASAWatch.com and Astrobiology.com, Lapsed climber, Explorer, Synaesthete, Former Challenger Center board member...

12 replies on “Starship Precursors Conduct Orbital Test Flight”

  1. Now if we can just upload ourselves to the chips…along with instructions for the finder to err…download.

    1. If you look into what these folks are proposing, this step is about the equivalent of tying your shoes laces before setting out to climb Mount Everest. Congratulations and good luck to them, but this doesn’t even scratch the surface of the problem.

      1. Quite true. While I’d call it more like, say, deciding which shoes are best for the climb, it is indeed a very small step.

        It’s a step, and one taken by some very capable people.

  4. Any links for the radio transmitter? I haven’t found any description of it, the frequencies and power it uses, or any amateur radio operators that have received anything from it. I’d also be interested to know how they plan on sending any data from that far away to earth.

    1. As far as I know, they plan using laser bursts for communication with the real deal, but I was curious as well about this mini-radio transmitter.

    2. I have no idea. But I wonder what sort of phased array you could put together from a networked swarm of pico-satellites.

  5. If this is supposed to be part of a quest for “practical interstellar space missions”, how are such tiny radio transmitters ever going to be heard from interstellar distances? Voyager 1 has a 22.4-Watt transmitter and a big antenna in order to be heard even on the huge dishes that the “deep space network” uses.

    1. From what I remember after browsing a solar-sailing book (where interstellar sails are also discussed) the laser (or maser)-sails are also antennae, and the probes are sent in a chain. Data is relayed from the most distant probe through the chain to the probe nearest the sun. i think the giant microwave transmitters that propel the sails also do double-duty as the receivers.

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