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A space probe to the interstellar medium has proven elusive due to the substantial distances involved.
A realistic mission that has some hope of being implemented must have a planned mission length measured in
decades at the most. Robotic missions must rely upon proven technology and launch vehicles. Evolutionary
advance of some systems may be considered on anew mission, but only as long as the developmental risks appear
to be low. Against this backdrop, a scientific requirement for such a mission has been articulated and
advocated for 30 years. Propulsion has always been the driving problem. Previous studies have considered
ballistic near-Sun gravity assists, large Nuclear Electic Propulsion (NEP) systems, and small solar-sail driven systems. In each case,
the propulsion technology has been and remains just out of reach. We have provided a first cut of a
self-consistent design for such a mission using Radioisotope Electric Propulsion (REP), existing launch vehicle hardware, and a Jupiter
gravity assist. While the final speed of the probe is not as high as might be wished, it is sufficiently
high to provided new and potentially transformational knowledge of our surroundings in interstellar space.
More importantly, the required technology advances are evolutionary such that the probe could be built
and launched as soon as the next launch window opens in late 2014.
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