AI-plotted route sets course for Alpha Centauri

The Fermi Explorer Mission has announced plans to launch a spacecraft to the Alpha Centauri star system by the end of 2029. The mission, which is funded by private donors with an estimated cost of $15 million, will utilise a novel trajectory discovered by an artificial intelligence system developed by Physical Superintelligence (PSI).

The spacecraft is expected to carry at least one kilogram of cargo, including a copy of the Golden Record, a gold-plated disc of Earth’s sounds and images previously attached to NASA’s Voyager probes. Given the distance of 4.4 light-years, the journey is anticipated to take up to 80,000 years to arrive at its destination.

PSI, an AI physics research lab that launched with $58 million in funding led by Breakthrough Energy, used its open-source "Get Physics Done" software to identify the route. The system analysed the mission’s requirements and proposed a path involving close solar passes to optimise energy efficiency for the small, solar-powered craft.

According to the mission’s cofounder and president, Philip Johnston, the team struggled for a year to find a workable route that balanced power and weight. When the problem was presented to the AI system, it suggested the spacecraft could slow down to swing its orbit closer to the sun than Mercury. On each close pass, the craft would fire its engine, allowing the solar panels to capture four times the light and generating a burst of thrust that would buy more energy than the same burst delivered elsewhere.

This approach allows the solar panels to remain small and the spacecraft light, as the engine would run only near the sun. The AI system conducted the research mostly on its own for three days, running on a billion tokens, while an astrophysicist on PSI’s staff steered the process and checked the output for errors.

The proposed trajectory is detailed in a paper that has not yet been peer-reviewed. While the mission represents a significant step in interstellar travel, Johnston noted that the Fermi probe is not expected to be the first to arrive at Alpha Centauri, as future technological advancements in propulsion are likely to overtake it.