Antimatter driven sail for deep space missions

The ultimate goal of this project is to identify and investigate an exploration architecture that would allow a light-weight instrument package to be sent to another stellar system. Due to the difficulty inherent in an interstellar mission, we have examined an architecture for a less demanding mission; sending a probe to the Kuiper Belt in a transit time of 10 years. Missions to deep space will require specific impulses greater than 6000 seconds in order to accomplish the mission within the career lifetime of an individual. Only two technologies available to mankind offer such performance; fusion and antimatter. Fusion has proven unattainable despite forty years of research and billion of dollars. Antimatter, alternatively, reacts with uranium 98% of the time in a well-described manner. However, development of a suitable propulsion system based on antimatter has not been shown until now. Our system analysis indicates that a 10 kg instrument payload could be sent to 250 AU in 10 years using 30 milligrams of antihydrogen. In addition, preliminary calculations also show that 17 grams of antihydrogen could send a similar probe to the next star, Alpha Centauri, in 40 years. We have designed a very straightforward system that will produce a variable specific impulse with a maximum of near one million seconds. The concept is one that can be throttled, that can be steered, and that can be demonstrated within the next two years. In this paper we identify the components of the system architecture that will be needed to perform a mission to the Kuiper Belt.