Why do we humans study spacecraft? It’s about exploring the mysteries of the universe. But the biggest difficulty for mankind at present is that the speed of the spacecraft is far from fast enough. Recently, foreign technology companies have developed a micro spacecraft.
According to media reports, last year, the extraterrestrial exploration project Breakthrough Initiatives announced an ambitious plan to send a multi-ton micro spacecraft to Alpha Centauri, the nearest star system to the earth. The project is called “Breakthrough Starshot” and its goal is to send ultra-light “mini-spacecraft” to other stars at extremely high speeds.
These miniature spaceships are called “Sprites” (meaning little elves), with a side length of only 3.5 centimeters and a weight of about 4 grams. Manchester and his colleagues hope that spacecraft like Sprites, which they call StarChips, will eventually reach 20 percent the speed of light, or 37,000 miles per second. Such a spacecraft can fly from the earth to the moon in less than 7 seconds. Such speeds and distances have never been achieved by any spacecraft of any size before. The fastest spacecraft currently is NASA’s Voyager 1. It was launched in 1977 and only just flew out of the solar system a few years ago.
The Sprites spacecraft is currently operating in low Earth orbit. They entered orbit on June 23 aboard India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). The Breakthrough Starshot project is expected to launch a second batch of satellites soon. “They have to fly extremely long distances, which is undoubtedly a difficult challenge.” Manchester added, “We are still a long way from achieving the ultimate goal of breakthrough star photography, but we have made a good start. Hopefully humans The road of exploration can go further and longer.
