[meteorite-list] NASA Funded Asteroid Tracking Sensor Passes Key Test

[Ron Baalke]

April 15, 2013

Dwayne Brown 
Headquarters, Washington 
202-358-1726 
dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov 

D.C. Agle 
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. 
818-393-9011 
agle at jpl.nasa.gov 

RELEASE: 13-109

NASA FUNDED ASTEROID TRACKING SENSOR PASSES KEY TEST

PASADENA, Calif. -- An infrared sensor that could improve NASA's 
future detecting and tracking of asteroids and comets has passed a 
critical design test. 

The test assessed performance of the Near Earth Object Camera (NEOCam) 
in an environment that mimicked the temperatures and pressures of 
deep space. NEOCam is the cornerstone instrument for a proposed new 
space-based asteroid-hunting telescope. Details of the sensor's 
design and capabilities are published in an upcoming edition of the 
Journal of Optical Engineering. 

The sensor could be a vital component to inform plans for the agency's 
recently announced initiative to develop the first-ever mission to 
identify, capture and relocate an asteroid closer to Earth for future 
exploration by astronauts. 

"This sensor represents one of many investments made by NASA's 
Discovery Program and its Astrophysics Research and Analysis Program 
in innovative technologies to significantly improve future missions 
designed to protect Earth from potentially hazardous asteroids," said 
Lindley Johnson, program executive for NASA's Near-Earth Object 
Program Office in Washington. 

Near-Earth objects are asteroids and comets with orbits that come 
within 28 million miles of Earth's path around the sun. Asteroids do 
not emit visible light, they reflect it. Depending on how reflective 
an object is, a small, light-colored space rock can look the same as 
a big, dark one. As a result, data collected with optical telescopes 
using visible light can be deceiving. 

"Infrared sensors are a powerful tool for discovering, cataloging and 
understanding the asteroid population," said Amy Mainzer, a co-author 
of the paper and principal investigator for NASA's NEOWISE mission at 
the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. 
NEOWISE stands for Near-Earth Object Wide-Field Infrared Survey 
Explorer. "When you observe a space rock with infrared, you are 
seeing its thermal emissions, which can better define the asteroid's 
size, as well as tell you something about composition." 

The NEOCam sensor is designed to be more reliable and significantly 
lighter in weight for launching aboard space-based telescopes. Once 
launched, the proposed telescope would be located about four times 
the distance between Earth and the moon where NEOCam could observe 
the comings and goings of NEOs every day without the impediments of 
cloud cover and daylight. 

The sensor is the culmination of almost 10 years of scientific 
collaboration between JPL; the University of Rochester, which 
facilitated the test; and Teledyne Imaging Sensors of Camarillo, 
Calif., which developed the sensor. 

"We were delighted to see in this generation of detectors a vast 
improvement in sensitivity compared with previous generations," said 
the paper's lead author, Craig McMurtry of the University of 
Rochester. 

NASA's NEOWISE is an enhancement of the Wide-field Infrared Survey 
Explorer, or WISE, mission that launched in December 2009. WISE 
scanned the entire celestial sky in infrared light twice. It captured 
more than 2.7 million images of objects in space, ranging from 
faraway galaxies to asteroids and comets close to Earth. 

NEOWISE completed its survey of small bodies, asteroids and comets, in 
our solar system. The mission's discoveries of previously unknown 
objects include 21 comets, more than 34,000 asteroids in the main 
belt between Mars and Jupiter, and134 near-NEOs. 

JPL manages the NEOCam sensor program for NASA's Discovery Program 
office at the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, 
Ala. NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington manages the 
Discovery Program office. The Astrophysics Research and Analysis 
Program at NASA Headquarters also provided funding for the sensor. 

To see and image of the sensor, visit: 

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA16955 

More information about asteroids and near-Earth objects is at: 

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch 

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