Fermi Explorer Mission adopts PSI-computed trajectory for 2029 Alpha Centauri launch

The nonprofit Fermi Explorer Mission announced a 2029 launch window for an uncrewed probe to 4.4 light-years distant Alpha Centauri. PSI supplied the trajectory after training a policy network on 2.3 million simulated three-body gravitational assists. The route requires 80,000 years transit time and deviates from the 1977 Voyager-style hyperbolic escape by 0.7 degrees at the first solar-system exit asymptote.

Training logs show the model converged after 47,000 episodes on a reward function that penalized delta-v above 12 km/s while maximizing interstellar hyperbolic excess speed. Validation runs against JPL DE440 ephemerides produced a 99.2 percent success rate in reaching the target sphere of influence within 0.3 light-years. No peer-reviewed paper has yet appeared; only internal PSI technical reports dated 18 August 2025 document the architecture.

Operational impact centers on onboard autonomy: the probe carries no ground-link antenna sized for 4.4 light-year distances, so trajectory corrections after 2035 will rely on the same policy network running on radiation-hardened inference hardware. This removes the 8.8-year round-trip light-time constraint that has limited prior deep-space missions. Next milestone is hardware-in-the-loop testing at PSI’s Pasadena facility scheduled for Q2 2027.