new delhi remember the 2014 oscarwinning scifi movie interstellar where a group of volunteers travels across the galaxy in search of a new home for humanity in real life however only five nasa spacecraft have gone beyond the planets of our solar system interstellar missions travelling between stars or planetary systems remain only in the realms of possibilityindian space research organisation isro became part of a global project that will help bring star travel closer to reality when its pslv c38 rocket launched six prototypes of tiny interstellar spacecraft or sprites into lowearth orbit on june 23 this yearthe good news is that one of these six stampsized sprites which weigh just 4gm and are 35cm long has managed to establish contact with ground stations becoming the smallest spacecraft ever to do so its being seen as a giant step in space technology with the isro launch sowing the seed of what could be future interstellar missionscourtesy breakthrough starshotsprite will help explore deep space mysteriesthe six interstellar spacecraft or sprites launched are part of an ambitious multimillion dollar breakthrough starshot research project being funded by russian billionaire and tech investor yuri milner and supported by cosmologist stephen hawkingbreakthrough starshot aims to send a fleet of sprites to alpha centauri our closest star system located about 437 light years away from the earth each sprite weighing just 4 gm carries with it sensors solar panels radio equipment and computers on a single circuit board the sensors on each circuit board will enable scientists to track their movement in spacethough indias cartosat2 satellite was the main payload of the june 23 launch the pslv c38 carried with it 29 nano satellites from 14 countries the six sprite prototypes piggybacked on venta and max valier educational satellites two of the 29 satelliteswhile venta1 is a latvian satellite built in collaboration with germany max valier is a nano satellite codeveloped by teams of germany and italy another four sprites are still mounted on max valier and await deploymentconfirming the development isro chairman a s kiran kumar said venta1 and max valier nano satellites on which six sprites were mounted were indeed launched by pslv c38 on june 23though currently only prototypes of interstellar spacecraft have been launched for preliminary tests breakthrough starshot wants to use lasers to launch the sprites deep into spacethe sprites once accelerated by laser will reach up to 15 to 20 of the speed of light even with such great speeds it will take over 20 years for a sprite to reach alpha centaurionce there the sprites will capture images of the star and its planet proxima b and send images back to earth scientists expect to launch thousands of sprites to study the earths magnetic field and atmosphere and this could become a reality within the next decade