Project Lyra
Project Lyra investigates technically credible ways to reach 1I/‘Oumuamua—the first recognised interstellar object—after its departure from the Solar System.
The challenge
1I/‘Oumuamua was already receding rapidly when it was discovered in 2017. Intercepting it demands unusually high departure energy, careful use of planetary encounters and, in some architectures, an Oberth manoeuvre close to the Sun. Project Lyra was established by the Initiative for Interstellar Studies to examine whether such a mission could be designed with credible technology.
Global trajectory search
Large families of planetary encounters and manoeuvre sequences must be searched systematically rather than selected by intuition alone.
Gravity assists
Earth and Jupiter encounters can reshape the trajectory and build the heliocentric energy needed to pursue the object.
Solar Oberth options
A powered manoeuvre near perihelion can exploit the spacecraft’s high solar-relative speed to produce a much larger energy change.
Adam Hibberd’s contribution
Adam developed OITS and used it to discover and refine Project Lyra trajectories, including Earth-leveraging, Jupiter-assisted and Solar Oberth mission architectures.
The work combines analytical astrodynamics, numerical propagation and global optimisation. OITS allows encounter sequences, flight times and manoeuvres to be varied together, revealing solutions that are difficult to construct manually.
Why the study matters
A mission to 1I/‘Oumuamua would permit direct investigation of material formed around another star. Project Lyra also provides a practical testbed for rapid-response mission design, advanced propulsion studies and future encounters with newly discovered interstellar objects.