Blog

Fast mission to detect microbes on Venus – The joint i4is, FIT, Harvard, Space Initiatives paper: “A Precursor Balloon Mission for Venusian Astrobiology” by Andreas M. Hein, Manasvi Lingam, T. Marshall Eubanks, Adam Hibberd, Dan Fries, William Paul Blase has now been published on arXiv. Thanks to Bruce Dorminey, it has now been featured in […]

We are very proud to announce that we have submitted a Mission Concept White Paper for the Decadal Survey on missions to interstellar objects: “Interstellar Now! Missions to and Sample Returns from Nearby Interstellar Objects” This was an intense collaborative effort between a group of international researchers: Andreas M. Hein (i4is), T. Marshall Eubanks (i4is/Space […]

Our Project Lyra Team has come up with an analysis of using nuclear thermal rockets for reaching the interstellar object 1I/’Oumuamua. It turns out that drastic reductions in mission duration (< 14 years for a launch in 2031) and spacecraft mass (1000s of kg vs. 100s of kg for conventional chemical propulsion) are possible.

We are very excited to share with you the publication of Nikolaos Perakis’ first single-authored paper in Elsevier’s peer-reviewed journal “Acta Astronautica”. The paper entitled “Maneuvering through solar wind using magnetic sails” explores the use of magnetic sails for interplanetary missions and can be accessed free of charge for the next 45 days using the […]