NASA participates in developing spacecraft five times faster than sound

In April, the space research team including legendary Stephen Hawking announced a space exploration project in other galaxies by using lasers to launch a space ship the size of a leaf. postcard postcard to Alpha Centauri star system.

If the ship can achieve the same speed as calculated then it will take up to 20 years to reach that distant galaxy but how can the electronic system on board exist for 20 years in space?

The main problem of the exploratory program proposed by Hawking is radioactivity , due to the size of the vessel, it will be affected by high-energy radioactive rays in the cosmic environment similar to the human body. The silicone coating of the Nano spacecraft (the ship's name for the expedition program) will be quickly corroded and will not last as long as 20 years as expected. The research team from NASA and the Korea Institute of Science and Technology said.

Stephen Hawking and Breakthough Starshot project.

To solve this problem, we can choose the appropriate flight route so that it is less affected by radiation as possible. But the disadvantage of this method is that the distance will be prolonged and does not guarantee that the radiation from the universe does not affect the ship.

Another option is to strengthen the protective layer to help increase protection against cosmic radiation, but this extra volume will extend flight time as well as significantly reduce the flight speed.

The most feasible option is to add a self-repair feature to the protection of the Nano space ship. "Self-healing technology has been around for many years" - Jin Woo Han, Nasa researcher said at the recent IEEE Workshop.

The plan to build spacecraft is five times faster than Hawking's sound speed.

Using a new technique called " Omnidirectional Gate" - semiconductor nanoscale developed by KIST - Korea Institute of Science and Technology, the team said it would be possible to use electricity to act as a reservoir In the Nano, the ship aims to repair itself when damaged by cosmic radiation.

The idea here is that the chip contained in the ship will be reduced in energy after a few years and then it will be recovered by semiconductor nanofibers and can continue to travel in the best state.

In the study, the experiments showed that the self-recovery process for main memory was 10,000 times and the Cache was 1012 times. This is just a proposal to solve the problem for the Nano and have yet to receive any reviews from independent organizations. However, the group said this could be the key to the solution to help the space ship Nano fulfill its mission.

Of course the electronic element is only a small part of this large project and still depends on many other factors.

Semiconductor nanofibers may be the solution to the problem of cosmic radiation.

If the Nano ships into space, in addition to the cosmic radioactive rays, the ship faces many other dangers such as cosmic dust, suspended gas and suspended objects.

Early next year, Starshot space exploration program will begin a series of experiments to assess the danger and impact of dangerous dust and materials. By that time, it is certain that the ship's protection system will be considered.

More research will be conducted before this exciting mission is carried out. But for us, it's really exciting to see the development of this crazy space exploration program come true.

The study was presented at an international conference on electronics in San Francisco last week.