USA: The recently completed DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) planetary defense test by NASA was a resounding success. At a speed of 22,530 kilometers per hour, the DART spacecraft collided with its intended target, a 520-foot-tall asteroid named Dimorphos, which changed its orbit in 32 minutes. Risky asteroids must first be located in order to divert, and NEO Surveyor is specifically built for that task.
A 20-inch-wide telescope that operates in two heat-sensitive infrared wavelengths is the only scientific instrument included in NEO Surveyor. The space telescope will produce details on NEOs' sizes, orbits, compositions, shapes and rotational states. Dark asteroids and comets that do not reflect visible light will be among the most difficult cosmic objects to be able to find it.
Lindley Johnson, NASA's Planetary Defense Officer in the Planetary Defense Coordination Office, said that "NEO Surveyor represents NASA's next generation capability to rapidly detect, track and identify potentially hazardous near-Earth objects". (PDCO).
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The ultimate high ground for NASA's planetary defense strategy, he continued, is a space-based infrared observatory. "Ground-based telescopes are essential for us to watch the sky continuously, but a space-based infrared observatory is the ultimate high ground," she said.
After successfully passing technical review, NEO Surveyor is now in the final design and construction phase. The project's technical, financial and schedule baselines are being established by NASA.
The launch of the telescope is not expected before June 2028. Within a decade of its launch, it will be located in the L1 Lagrange region between Earth and the Sun and begin searching for NEOs.
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In the past, the Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEO-WISE) mission, which ended in 2011, demonstrated its effectiveness in detecting and identifying NEOs.
NEO Surveyor, however, differs from its predecessor in that it is the first NASA space mission specifically designed to find a significant number of such hazardous asteroids and comets.
According to NASA, there are currently no NEOs that pose a significant risk of hitting Earth in the next 100 years. However, the unknown NEO has caused problems in the past. In 2013, a house-sized asteroid passed just 22 kilometers above the ground in Chelyabinsk, Russia, injuring more than 1,600 people. The collision released energy equivalent to about 440,000 tonnes of trinitrotoluene (TNT).
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While planetary defense is the primary goal of NEO Surveyor, information collected by the space telescope can advance knowledge of the prehistoric building blocks of our solar system, the beginnings and evolution of asteroids and comets.