FOCAL mission to 550 thru 1000Â AU: Status review 2009

This paper describes the gravitational lens of the Sun and an updated status review of FOCAL including:(1) The new book by the author, published in March 2009 and entitled “Deep Space Flight and Communications”.(2) The utilization of the relativistic KLT (Karhunen-Loève Transform) instead of the classical FFT to insure optimal telecommunications with the Earth during such a relativistic flight.