FUTURE TECH
PROJECT ICARUS
Masterminded in 2009, this mission aims to make the dream of interstellar exploration a reality
Byany standard, Project Icarus is a very ambitious attempt at assessing the requirements for an unmanned interstellar probe using current and developing technology. In the process of producing technical reports on the physics, functionality, engineering and performance requirements of the spacecraft needed for different types of mission profiles, it’s hoped to provide inspiration for a new generation of scientists and boost the possibility of bringing such a scheme into reality. The project is an update of the British Interplanetary Society’s Project Daedalus, which ran from 1973 to 1978. Daedalus envisaged a huge two-stage, 54-million-kilogram nuclearfusion-powered spacecraft fuelled by deuterium and helium-3.