The study's lead author, Australian National University astrophysicist Chathura Bandutunga, said when they discovered the solution it was a kind of "eureka moment", when they worked out how many lasers, and in what formation, they would need to propel their spacecraft far enough and fast enough to reach its goal.
"We already have several crafts — Voyager included — [in interstellar space] but it will be many human lifetimes before they reach anywhere near another star," Dr Bandutunga said.
"The challenge that we're really looking at is how do we use light to push the satellite along?" he said.
Ideally, a spacecraft will reach Alpha Centauri, the closest star system and closest planetary system to Earth's, and record images and scientific measurements that will be broadcast back to Earth.
"This project is really about making that travel from our star to another star possible within a human lifetime," Dr Bandutunga said.
"I think it's really fun," Dr Horner said.
"This idea that if we could speed the spacecraft up to a quarter of the speed of light, you could get it to the nearest star within 15 or 20 years
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