AI-designed route could send a small probe to Alpha Centauri

The Fermi Explorer Mission, a nonprofit backed by individual private donors, plans to launch a spacecraft toward Alpha Centauri by the end of 2029. The journey would be far beyond a human timescale, with the probe potentially taking up to 80,000 years to reach a star system 4.4 light-years away.

The mission’s planned trajectory came from Get Physics Done, an open-source AI system developed by Physical Superintelligence, a physics research lab funded by Breakthrough Energy. After the Fermi team struggled to design a low-cost, solar-powered route, the system proposed a series of close solar passes, closer than Mercury, where the spacecraft would fire its engine while receiving four times the light from the sun. The approach could keep solar panels small and reduce spacecraft weight.

The spacecraft is expected to carry at least one kilogram of cargo, including artistic and scientific payloads, messages, and a copy of NASA’s Golden Record. Philip Johnston, the mission’s cofounder and president, said future spacecraft may overtake the probe long before it arrives, but the launch would still test whether humanity can become a civilization willing to reach another star.