The one groundbreaking technology needed for future extra-solar system unmanned probes is a J.S. Bell communications device. This technology, based on an oddity of quantum physics, would provide instantaneous communications across vast distances of space. And huge amounts of money are currently being spent to develop it.
It is based on the discovery of a phenomenon (roughly) that twin pairs of particles always spin in a direction with respect to each other, no matter how far they are physically apart. And when you change the spin of one, the spin of the other changes no matter where it is. And no one knows why.
And even if they were communicating with each other somehow, they are doing it faster than the speed of light.
This means that when we send a probe outside of our solar system, commands to it, and the information received back, would be instantaneous, not reliant on the huge delay of communication from the speed of light, or even worse, the signal strength of normal communications.
So we could then build probes that would just look like a steel ball, covered with armor, powered by an ion drive engine for high speed, that would not even open their armor to perform their mission until they were outside the harsh environment of our solar system.
It’s a start, but entanglement doesn’t work that way.
>>It is based on the discovery of a phenomenon (roughly) that twin pairs of particles always spin in a direction with respect to each other, no matter how far they are physically apart.<<
Einstein’s “spukhafte Fernwirkung”. How about first using it for Earth-based FTL (”faster-than-light”) communication?
Sorry... it doesn’t work that way.
Maybe star trek was on to something with their subspace communication networks?