[meteorite-list] WISE Spacecraft Reactivated to Hunt for Asteroid

[Ron Baalke]

August 21, 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 13-263
     
NASA Spacecraft Reactivated to Hunt for Asteroids

Probe Will Assist Agency in Search for Candidates to Explore

A NASA spacecraft that discovered and characterized tens of thousands of  
asteroids throughout the solar system before being placed in hibernation will  
return to service for three more years starting in September, assisting the  
agency in its effort to identify the population of potentially hazardous  
near-Earth objects, as well as those suitable for asteroid exploration  
missions.

The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) will be revived next month  
with the goal of discovering and characterizing near-Earth objects (NEOs),  
space rocks that can be found orbiting within 45 million kilometers (28  
million miles) from Earth's path around the sun. NASA anticipates WISE will  
use its 16-inch (40-centimeter) telescope and infrared cameras to discover  
about 150 previously unknown NEOs and characterize the size, albedo and  
thermal properties of about 2,000 others -- including some of which could be  
candidates for the agency's recently announced asteroid initiative.

"The WISE mission achieved its mission's goals and as NEOWISE extended the  
science even further in its survey of asteroids. NASA is now extending that  
record of success, which will enhance our ability to find potentially  
hazardous asteroids, and support the new asteroid initiative," said John  
Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for science in Washington.  
"Reactivating WISE is an excellent example of how we are leveraging existing  
capabilities across the agency to achieve our goal."

NASA's asteroid initiative will be the first mission to identify, capture and  
relocate an asteroid. It represents an unprecedented technological feat that  
will lead to new scientific discoveries and technological capabilities that  
will help protect our home planet. The asteroid initiative brings together  
the best of NASA's science, technology and human exploration efforts to  
achieve President Obama's goal of sending humans to an asteroid by 2025.

Launched December 2009 to look for the glow of celestial heat sources from  
asteroids, stars and galaxies, WISE made about 7,500 images every day during  
its primary mission from January 2010 to February 2011. As part of a project  
called NEOWISE, the spacecraft made the most accurate survey to date of NEOs.  
NASA turned most of WISE's electronics off when it completed its primary  
mission.

"The data collected by NEOWISE two years ago have proven to be a gold mine  
for the discovery and characterization of the NEO population," said Lindley  
Johnson, NASA's NEOWISE program executive in Washington. "It is important  
that we accumulate as much of this type of data as possible while the WISE  
spacecraft remains a viable asset."

Because asteroids reflect but do not emit visible light, infrared sensors are  
a powerful tool for discovering, cataloging and understanding the asteroid  
population. Depending on an object's reflectivity, or albedo, 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.

During 2010, NEOWISE observed about 158,000 rocky bodies out of approximately  
600,000 known objects. Discoveries included 21 comets, more than 34,000  
asteroids in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter, and 135 near-Earth  
objects.

The WISE prime mission was to scan the entire celestial sky in infrared  
light. It captured more than 2.7 million images in multiple infrared  
wavelengths and cataloged more than 560 million objects in space, ranging  
from galaxies faraway to asteroids and comets much closer to Earth.

"The team is ready and after a quick checkout, we're going to hit the ground  
running," said Amy Mainzer, NEOWISE principal investigator at NASA's Jet  
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "NEOWISE not only gives us a better  
understanding of the asteroids and comets we study directly, but it will help  
us refine our concepts and mission operation plans for future, space-based  
near-Earth object cataloging missions."

JPL manages WISE for NASA's Science Mission Directorate at the agency's  
headquarters in Washington. The mission is part of NASA's Explorers Program,  
which NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., manages. The  
Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, Utah, built the science instrument. Ball  
Aerospace & Technologies Corp. of Boulder, Colo., built the spacecraft.  
Science operations and data processing take place at the Infrared Processing  
and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

More information about NEOWISE is available online at:

http://www.nasa.gov/wise 

For more information about the asteroid initiative, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/asteroidinitiative 

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