Project Dragonfly is competition to design interstellar laser sail probes that would be technological feasible by 2034 and launched by 2050

Project Dragonfly is a feasibility study for an interstellar mission, conducted by small, distributed spacecraft, propelled primarily by laser sails. The spacecraft shall be capable of reaching the target star system within a century and be able to decelerate. We believe that such a mission can be conducted with technology available by 2024-2034 as well as a space infrastructure, available by 2050.

The competition’s main objective is to identify innovative mission architectures that are feasible in terms of required technologies as well as required resources. The final design reports of the teams shall cover all areas, which are relevant for returning scientific data from such a mission: instruments, communication, laser sail design, power supply, secondary structure, deceleration propulsion etc. Furthermore, the technological as well as economic feasibility of the architecture shall be assessed by the teams.

The designs will be evaluated on the basis of the following criteria (preliminary list, subject to change):

Technical soundness: Are the physics and engineering right?
Technological feasibility: Is it likely that the technology is available in the next 10-20 years?
Economic feasibility: Are the resources needed for the mission reasonable? Does the design exploit synergies with future space infrastructure? Is there a reasonable chance that the mission can be conducted by 2050?
Innovation: Are there approaches to drastically increase the scientific return of such a mission without compromising feasibility?

Centauri Dreams looked at some of the details of how this is becoming feasible

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