A lot of questions were left in the wake of the object passing through the Solar System. It was the first object of its kind to be observed, but the limited data that was obtained left them scratching their heads. Scientists are still unsure about the true nature and origins of this visitor, almost five years after it made its flyby. The only way to get answers from Oumuamua is to catch up with it.
There are many proposals on the table for missions that could do that. The Institute for Interstellar Studies (i4is) has a proposal that would use advanced technology to rendezvous with ISOs and study them. If their mission concept launched in 2028 and performed a complex Jupiter Oberth Manoeuvre, it would be able to catch up to Oumuamua in 26 years.
The Initiative for Interstellar Studies (i4is) launched Project Lyra less than two weeks after the discovery of Oumuamua. The purpose of the concept study was to determine if a mission to rendezvous with Oumuamua was feasible using current or near-term technologies. Since then, the i4is team has conducted studies that considered using nuclear-thermal propulsion and a laser sailcraft to catch up with the ISO.
Most of the previously proposed methods for reaching 1I/'Oumuamua using near-term technologies call for a Solar Oberth Manoeuvre. A perfect example is the Sundiver, a proposal made by researcher Coryn Bailer-Jones of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy. This concept relies on the Sun's radiation pressure to get a high speed with a light sail.
The principle of the Oberth effect is to apply your boost when you are moving fastest relative to the body you are in, which is the Sun in the case of the Sundiver. The closer you are to the Sun, the faster you will be. To take advantage of the Oberth effect, you need to be close to the Sun.
The technique known as a Gravity Assist has been used to explore the Solar System since the early 1970s. This technique involves using the force of three bodies, including the spacecraft, a second body that provides the assist, and the central body about which the path is being controlled.
A researcher with the i4is was the lead author of the latest Lyra study. The engineer who developed the software before joining i4is was an aerospace engineer. When Oumuamua was found, he decided to use OITS with this ISO as his intended destination. He joined their research efforts after he found out about Project Lyra.
The Project Lyra lightsail probe rendezvoused with an ISO. I4is is a credit.
He told Universe Today that the Solar Oberth Maneuver relies on three changes in velocity to leave the Solar System. These include:
At Earth, to increase the distance from the Sun.
Slow down and fall in close to the Sun at aphelion.
At the closest point to the Sun when the spaceship is travelling at the fastest rate.
The 3-impulse scenario was discovered in 1959 by Theodore Edelbaum. It is the best fuel for generating high speeds out of the solar system. This is what is needed to catch an ISO when the sun is at perihelion.
This theoretical setup ignores Jupiter. We can achieve escape with less fuel if we slow down in step 2 with the help of a reverse Jupiter gravitational assist. The SOM has been used to research missions to ISOs because it is so efficient at generating high speeds.
A time-tested route that incorporated Jupiter's powerful gravitational pull was considered as an alternative to a SOM. The inherent challenges of a solar gravity assist maneuver were part of the motivation for this. This maneuver has never been done before and therefore has a low Technology Readiness Level rating.
The Interstellar probe would be the farthest-reaching mission to date. Credit: NASA
There is an issue of how much heating will take place as the lightsail reaches perihelion. The NASA Solar and Space Physics concept study addressed these issues. This study was done for the Decadal Survey of the Solar and Space Physics. The study addresses thermal protection in the context of a Solar Oberth Maneuver.
The Interstellar Probe challenge is to see how close a spacecraft can get to the Sun, unlike earlier missions, where a shield design was needed for a given Sun distance. The umbra angle increases and the shield grows as the solar distance decreases.
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The final recommendation of allowable Sun distance is made based on where the design seems to be moving from very difficult to impossible because a conceptual design effort cannot include all the material design, fabrication, and testing limitations of the full design.
Getting close to the Sun requires a heat shield that can handle the extreme heat and radiation. In the case of Parker, the shield is about 8 feet in diameter and weighs more than 160 lbs. It is a good bet that a solar heat shield will result in a lot of additional mass for the lightsail.
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A Jupiter Oberth Manoeuvre (JOM), which would launch from Earth, swing around Venus and Earth, conduct a Deep Space Maneuver (DSM), swing by Earth again, and receive a Gravity Assist using Jupiter's gravitational pull, was recommended by the team. The acronym V-E-DSM-E-J stands for Venus, Earth, Earth, Gravity Assist. This maneuver would have advantages over a SOM.
The extra distance from Jupiter to the Solar Oberth would not require a heavy heat shield. The Jupiter Oberth Manoeuvre would not require a SOM which would take time.
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JOM is a discovery which is key to the project as it does not require any hardware or manoeuvres which have not been tried before. The mission duration must be longer because of the lower escape speeds generated by the JOM.
The arrival speed of the spaceship would be much slower than relying on a SOM, which would be 108,000 km/h. This would allow the Project Lyra to analyze Oumuamua during approach and departure. They determined that a Project Lyra lightsail would be able to catch up to Oumuamua by 2054.
The scientific returns for a rendezvous mission would be amazing if Oumuamua is the closest piece of material to us. By the mid-century, humanity could get a glimpse of what goes on in other star systems. It would be a chance to finally resolve the many questions Oumuamua raised when it made its historic flyby of Earth years ago.
Is it a nitrogen iceberg? Is it aliens? Was it something else entirely? We will know the answers to these questions by mid-century if we play our cards right.
Further reading: arXiv
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