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Many of the technical specifications of the mission, such as the type of propulsion to use (the solar sails would be the most obvious choice, but with current technologies they would have problems to overcome the close passage near the Sun unscathed), and shielding technologies necessary to go so far into open space, they have yet to be thoroughly researched. But the calculations made in recent years have convinced researchers that the efforts would be more than rewarded by the result. Such a telescope could in fact provide the most accurate mapping of an exoplanet obtainable without going directly to the place: an image of the planet with a spatial resolution of about 25 kilometers, enough – they assure – to map the characteristics of the surface and identify traces of forms of life.
What else is boiling in the pot?
As we said, there are just five research programs of the Niac which have reached the third stage of development since the institute was refounded by NASA in 2011. The first was the Mini Bee projectin 2019, which aims to build and test a new extraction technology of water and other volatile compounds present in asteroids, to be used to refuel during space missions of the future. The technique is defined optical extractionbecause it plans to concentrate the rays of sunlight, and exploit them to destroy the rocks of the asteroids and thus obtain the materials stored inside them.
A second research program, which entered the third phase of development in the same year, envisages the realization of “Skylight”a demonstration mission for the realization of autonomous robots able to explore the pits present on the lunar surface. Places – explain its creators – of strategic importance for the future colonization of the satellite, of which very little is currently known.
To follow, in 2021 it was “Cube-Sat Space Flight Test of a Neutrino Detector”a project that wants to send a neutrino detector to hunt down the dark matter. Again, the goal is to exploit the gravitational lens of the Sun to study the neutrinos coming from the galactic nucleus, deviated from the mass of the star, and those emitted directly by the Sun. In this case, being particles with mass, the focal point to be reached would be much closer than that necessary for electromagnetic radiation: a point located between 20 and 50 astronomical unitsincluding more or less between Uranus and Pluto.
Finally, the latest addition is the project that has reached the third phase this year: “Diffractive Solar Sailing”a research program that wants to revolutionize the concept of solar sailmoving from the traditional one, based on materials that reflect light, to a new design that exploits metamaterials able to use the diffraction to harness the propulsive power of electromagnetic radiation from the Sun, and to obtain greater power and maneuverability. The technology is still under development, but the project already includes the construction of a fleet of diffraction solar sails that should circumnavigate the Sun, to study it closely, and provide real-time data for space weather forecasts.
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