NASA’s ‘NEO’ Asteroid hunter

Abstract

NASA used a kinetic impactor to deflect an asteroid as part of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission to show off its planetary defense skills. The space agency’s time it takes the space agency to launch a dedicated mission to divert a potentially dangerous asteroid is currently between five and ten years.

The course of the asteroids must be determined years in advance for the procedure to function. The Near-Earth Object Surveyor, or NEO Surveyor mission, is being built by NASA to do this. After passing a final technical and programmatic assessment, the spacecraft moves on to the design and construction stage.

What is NEO?

The Near-Earth Object Surveyor Mission, or NEO Surveyor, is a space telescope that will enhance NASA’s planetary defense efforts to find most of the dangerous asteroids and comets that approach Earth’s orbit within 30 million miles (48 million km). The term “near-Earth objects” (NEOs) refers to all these items.

Purpose

The primary goal of the NEO Surveyor is to locate the most difficult near-Earth objects, such as black asteroids and comets, that do not reflect much visible light but are detectable in infrared wavelengths due to the heat they emit after being burned by the Sun.

The NEO Surveyor mission will also be able to discover asteroids that are approaching the Earth from the direction of the Sun. It is a problematic direction for ground-based telescopes to examine since they must look for asteroids in a condensed window immediately before sunrise. Additionally, the NEO Surveyor will be able to locate populations of Earth trojan asteroids, which lead and follow the Earth in its orbit around the Sun.

Instruments

A telescope with a diameter of over 20 inches (50 centimeters) and two heat-sensing infrared operating wavelengths makes up the sole scientific component of the NEO Surveyor. Both bright and dark asteroids, the hardest to discover and the kind to locate, will be able to be detected by it.

NEO Surveyor will measure NEO sizes precisely and will learn important details about their composition, forms, rotational states, and orbits by employing infrared sensors. Planetary scientists will find NEOs more swiftly with the use of the telescope.

Team

The University of Arizona is in charge of the NEO Surveyor mission.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory of NASA is creating the spacecraft (JPL).

The Planetary Defense Coordination Office oversees the program, which is run by NASA’s Planetary Missions Program Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center (PDCO).

–Launch Date

The NEO is expected to launch by 2028.