Getting there is "easy". But if the wafer is speeding at c/4 past the exoplanet, it will not be able to take any measurements. 4.2 Braking to Enter Orbit on Ar

Getting there is "easy". But if the wafer is speeding at c/4 past the exoplanet, it will not be able to take any measurements. 4.2 Braking to Enter Orbit on Arrival - A very difficult challenge is to slow the spacecraft to typical planetary orbital speeds to enable orbital capture once arriving. This task is difficult as the initial entry speeds are so high (~ c) and the orbital speeds are so low (~ 10-4 c). Dissipating this much energy is challenging. We have considered using the stars photon pressure, the stellar wind (assuming it is like our own solar system), using the magnetic coupling to the exo solar system plasma. None of these techniques appears to be obviously able to accomplish this task and much more work and simulation is needed. A simple fly-by mission is clearly the first type of mission to explore in any case to assess the environment in a given system to design (if possible) an optimized braking strategy.