PROMETEO Mission: Solar Gravitational Lens at 550 AU

PROMETEO is an advanced deep-space mission concept designed to reach the focal region of the Solar Gravitational Lens (SGL) at 550 astronomical units (AU) within a missionduration compatible with human scientific careers (approximately 16 years). The concept integrates (i) a high-power pulsed hybrid fission–fusion Z-pinch propulsion system with specificimpulse on the order of 13500s and average thrust near 20kN, (ii) a deployable carbon nanotube(CNT) primary structure that reconfigures between 12m (launch), 40m (maneuvers), and 100m(cruise), and (iii) a multilayer thermal survival subsystem (“Cryo-Fortress”) intended to maintain a cryogenic Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) detector through a solar perihelion passage at0.1AU under an irradiance of approximately 136000W/m2. With an estimated life-cycle costof 37BUSD and a launch mass of 24150kg, PROMETEO targets direct exoplanet imaging,ultra-high-energy photon spectroscopy (PeV-class), and tests of gravitational optics enabled bySGL amplification factors approaching 10E11