{"slug": "fermi-explorer-bets-on-today-s-tech-for-an-80k-year-journey", "title": "Fermi Explorer Bets on Today's Tech for an 80k Year Journey", "summary": "A group of space tech veterans led by Starcloud co-founder Philip Johnston plans to launch the Fermi Explorer, a 150-kilogram spacecraft that would travel to Alpha Centauri at 23.6 kilometers per second and take 80,000 years to arrive, at a cost of about US $15 million. The mission, which could launch as soon as 2029, would follow a trajectory designed by an AI model and carry a 1-kilogram payload of micrometeorite, radiation, and interstellar dust experiments plus a copy of the Golden Record. Johnston said, \"I hope we'll be the first spacecraft to leave for Alpha Centauri, but the last to arrive.", "body_md": "A group of space tech aficionados wants to send humanity’s first mission to another star. The spacecraft, called the [*Fermi Explorer*](https://www.fermiexplorer.org/), could launch as soon as 2029—but would take 80,000 years to reach its destination.\n\nThe mission would follow a trajectory designed by an AI model and would primarily serve as a message in a bottle for a possible alien civilization or future humans who might beat it to Alpha Centauri with better spaceships—although it will carry several small scientific payloads as well.\n\nThe *Fermi Explorer* is not the first mission to [Alpha Centauri](https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/alpha-centauri-triple-star-system-about-4-light-years-from-earth/) ever proposed. The star, at 4.37 light-years (or 25 trillion miles) away, is the closest to our Sun and has previously drawn the [attention of NASA](https://www.nasa.gov/general/swarming-proxima-centauri/) as well as [wealthy space enthusiasts](https://spectrum.ieee.org/how-do-you-fly-to-alpha-centauri-in-just-20-years-ride-a-laser-beam).\n\nThe *Fermi Explorer*, however, appears to be taking the most practical approach so far. It will rely on existing technology and come with a (relatively) affordable price tag of around US $15 million.\n\n“We live in an incredible time where we can actually send the first-ever human-made thing to another star,” says Philip Johnston, the project’s co-founder. “We should absolutely do that. We should go and explore the galaxy.”\n\n## Sending *Fermi Explorer* to Alpha Centauri\n\nJohnston is no stranger to out-there space ideas. His company, Starcloud, was the first to propose building a network of data centers in space. (That said, data centers in space is an idea that faces [plenty of skepticism](https://spectrum.ieee.org/orbital-data-centers), as *IEEE Spectrum* has [previously reported](https://spectrum.ieee.org/orbital-data-centers-heat).) The company’s demonstration satellite—the 60-kilogram [Starcloud-1](https://spectrum.ieee.org/nvidia-h100-space), powered by a Nvidia H100 GPU—has been crunching data in orbit since November 2025. \n\nWith the [*Fermi Explorer*](https://www.fermiexplorer.org/), Johnston and his co-founders (several of them Starcloud executives) want to kick-start the era of humankind’s race to other stars\n\n“I hope we’ll be the first spacecraft to leave for Alpha Centauri, but the last to arrive,” he says. “In 50 years, there will be better propulsion technology, and in 200 years even better. Even if it’s just 20 percent better than what we have, it would get them there long before us.”\n\nIn this planned trajectory, Fermi Explorer spends the first 13.5 years slingshotting first around Earth and then the Sun to build up speed for its 80,000-year journey to Alpha Centauri.Fermi Explorer Mission\n\nThe *Fermi Explorer* will have a mass of 150 kilograms. Two thirds of the spacecraft will be taken up by a xenon propellant tank supplying fuel for a [Hall-effect thruster](https://spectrum.ieee.org/hall-effect-sensor). A pair of solar panels will generate the electricity needed to ionize the propellant during the early stages of the spacecraft’s epochal trip. *Fermi Explorer* will ultimately travel to Alpha Centauri at a modest speed of 23.6 kilometers per second. In comparison, laser-powered micro-satellites proposed by the [Breakthrough Starshot Initiative](https://breakthroughinitiatives.org/initiative/3) in 2016 would zoom through interstellar space at 60,000 km/s.\n\nThe satellite will carry a 1-kilogram cubic payload compartment that is 10 centimeters on a side. The payload will contain a set of experiments including a plate absorbing micrometeorite impacts, a Geiger counter tracking radiation levels, and an interstellar dust trap. The satellite will also contain [a copy of the Golden Record](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260901669444/en/Fermi-Explorer-Set-To-Launch-Humanitys-First-Journey-To-Another-Star)—a phonograph plate placed on NASA’s Voyager spacecraft that features a collection of natural sounds, greetings in various languages, and pieces of music. It will also carry a collection of greetings to future civilizations sent by children from around the world.\n\nNoelia Noël is an astrophysicist at the University of Surrey in the U.K who has no connection to the mission. She says that although it won’t bring “much scientific advancement,” it is technically doable, relying on mature propulsion technology.\n\nFermi Explorer would use a type of Hall-effect thruster to generate thrust from expelled xenon ions during the first years of its journey.Fermi Explorer Mission\n\n“This is something that can be done. It’s not a crazy idea,” Noël says. She adds that although the spacecraft might suffer some damage from the exposure to microscopic dust, it is likely to survive its 80,000-year journey intact. (For comparison, 80,000 years ago, [modern humans](https://humanorigins.si.edu/human-characteristics/humans-change-world) were only beginning their migration out of Africa and living in hunter-gatherer tribes while using the most [basic tools](https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/behavior/stone-tools).)\n\nJohnston says the team struggled to find a trajectory that would set the spacecraft onto a path to escape the solar system while keeping the amount of propellant in check. They eventually turned to AI company [Physical Superintelligence](https://psi.inc/) to simulate potential solutions. Matt Pines, the CEO of Physical Superintelligence, says the company used its [Get Physics Done](https://github.com/psi-oss/get-physics-done) open-source agentic AI to run literature searches and subsequent sets of simulations and verification loops to rule out hallucinations.\n\n“It’s a sort of activity that would have required teams of human experts working for months and doing lots of pretty expensive and laborious calculations,” Pines says. “We have shown it can be done in a few hours.”\n\nThe result is a strategy to launch the *Fermi Explorer* into low-Earth orbit onboard a [SpaceX](https://spectrum.ieee.org/tag/spacex) Falcon 9. Then, the spacecraft will perform a series of precise thruster burns to gradually spiral toward the Sun. The trajectory would rely on the [Oberth effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberth_effect), in which a spacecraft takes advantage of the gravity of a massive body (like the Sun) to slingshot itself farther away.\n\nThe spacecraft will take 11 years to leave the solar system, after which it will shut down and continue to tumble toward Alpha Centauri, meaning it will not keep in touch for the vast majority of its interstellar cruise. It will join NASA’s [*Voyager 1* and *Voyager 2*](https://science.nasa.gov/mission/voyager/where-are-voyager-1-and-voyager-2-now/) in interstellar space. After launches in 1977, the pair exited the heliosphere, the region under the influence of the sun, in 2012 and 2018 respectively.\n\n- [Earth-Mass Planet Found in Our Own Backyard ›](https://spectrum.ieee.org/earthmass-planet-found-in-alpha-centauri)\n- [The High-Speed Plan for Interstellar Travel ›](https://spectrum.ieee.org/high-speed-interstellar-travel)\n- [How Do You Fly to Alpha Centauri in Just 20 Years? Ride a Laser Beam ›](https://spectrum.ieee.org/how-do-you-fly-to-alpha-centauri-in-just-20-years-ride-a-laser-beam)\n\n[Tereza Pultarova](https://spectrum.ieee.org/u/tereza_pultarova)\n\n[Tereza Pultarova](https://muckrack.com/tereza-pultarova) is a London-based journalist specializing in aerospace and defense technologies. She is a native of the Czech Republic.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/fermi-explorer-bets-on-today-s-tech-for-an-80k-year-journey", "canonical_source": "https://spectrum.ieee.org/alpha-centauri-fermi-explorer-mission", "published_at": "2026-09-13 10:33:03+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-09-13 11:05:12.997816+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence"], "entities": ["Fermi Explorer", "Philip Johnston", "Starcloud", "Alpha Centauri", "Starcloud-1", "Nvidia H100", "Breakthrough Starshot Initiative", "NASA"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/fermi-explorer-bets-on-today-s-tech-for-an-80k-year-journey", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/fermi-explorer-bets-on-today-s-tech-for-an-80k-year-journey.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/fermi-explorer-bets-on-today-s-tech-for-an-80k-year-journey.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/fermi-explorer-bets-on-today-s-tech-for-an-80k-year-journey.jsonld"}}