NASA has chosen SpaceX to launch a new space telescope called the Near Earth Orbit (NEO) Surveyor. This mission will focus on finding and studying objects that come close to Earth. The task order, announced on February 21, is part of NASA’s Launch Services II contract, with a value of around $100 million.
The NEO Surveyor is set to launch in September 2027 from Florida on a Falcon 9 rocket. Once in space, it will operate from the Earth-sun L-1 Lagrange point, which is about 1.5 million kilometers away from our planet, in the direction of the sun.
This spacecraft will have a 50-centimeter telescope equipped with infrared detectors. These instruments are vital for detecting near Earth objects (NEOs) and understanding their sizes and orbits. Over the next five years, the mission aims to find two-thirds of NEOs that are at least 140 meters wide. It has a long-term goal of locating 90% of such objects within 10 to 12 years.
The contract was awarded shortly after the NEO Surveyor mission successfully passed its critical design review on February 6. This milestone allows the project to move forward with assembly and testing. Right now, part of the spacecraft is being tested for durability at the Johnson Space Center. Later this spring, it will go to the Space Dynamics Lab in Utah for further integration and testing.
The need to monitor NEOs has grown, especially after recent concerns about an asteroid named 2024 YR4. Discovered in December, this asteroid is estimated to be between 40 and 90 meters wide. Early calculations suggested a small chance it could hit Earth in December 2032. As of February 18, the risk of impact had increased to 3.1%. However, more observations have refined its path, reducing the impact risk to just 0.36% as of February 21, according to the Center for Near Earth Object Studies at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
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