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The reactor would also be used to power a laser, for communications back to Earth, with a maximum power of 250 kilowatts. For most of the journey this would be used at a much lower power, for sending data about the interstellar medium, but during the flyby the main engine section would be discarded and the entire power capacity dedicated to communications at about 1 kilobit per second.

Longshot would have a mass of 396 MT at the start of the mission including 264 tonnes of helium-3/deuterium pellet fuel/propellant. The active mission payload, which includes the fission reactor but not the discarded main propulsion section, would have a mass of around 30 tonnes.

Loki Patera is the second largest volcanic depression on Jupiter's moon Io, 202 km in diameter. It contains an active lava lake, with an episodically overturning crust. The level of activity seen is similar to a superfast spreading mid-ocean ridge on Earth. Temperature measurements of thermal emission at Loki Patera taken by Voyager 1 's Infrared Interferometer Spectrometer and Radiometer (IRIS) instrument were consistent with sulfur volcanism.