NASA NEO Surveyor space telescope moves into its next phase
Shane McGlaun - Jun 13, 2021, 9:43am CDT
NASA announced on Friday that it has approved a new infrared space telescope called the Near-Earth Object Surveyor or NEO Surveyor. The telescope moves to the next step of mission deployment at the JPL after a successful review moved the project past the preliminary design phase. NEO Surveyor was a mission proposed to help discover and characterize near-earth objects that could be potentially hazardous to the Earth.
NASA defines a near-Earth object as an asteroid or comet that approaches within 1.3 astronomical units of the sun. While that is a vast distance, on a cosmic scale, it’s very close. NASA has approved the NEO-Surveyor project to move forward into Preliminary Design, also known as Key Decision Point-B. It’s an infrared space telescope designed to improve NASA’s planetary defense efforts by improving the ability to discover and characterize most po
autoevolution 6 Jun 2021, 7:29 UTC ·
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In November 2021, the American space agency will launch the Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission. Known as DART, it is a spacecraft whose single goal is to smash itself into a small piece of space rock and see if it can alter its course. 1 photo
There seem to be increasing efforts in coming up with ways of removing potential space threats to our planet. According to NASA, there are 25,000 near-Earth asteroids that we know of roaming about (and 15,000 others we know nothing about), so the hazard is not negligible.
In the most recent impact exercise conducted by the greatest minds in the space industry, we as a species were unable to stop an asteroid from slamming into Europe. The goal of the drill was to see whether a six-month warning would be enough for us to be able to mount some kind of defense, and the sad answer is that no, six months are not nearly enough given our current technological level.
SpaceX launched its 17th rocket of the year today (June 3), sending a robotic Dragon cargo capsule toward the International Space Station before nailing a landing at sea.
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Two new solar array wings for the International Space Station are rolled up inside the trunk of SpaceX’s Cargo Dragon capsule for launch Thursday. Credit: SpaceX
Two new solar array wings for the International Space Station are packed inside the trunk of a SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule for launch Thursday from the Kennedy Space Center, the first pair of six upgraded roll-out panels to give the orbiting outpost a power boost.