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

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2013 12:44:05 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <201304151944.r3FJi5BY007045_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

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

-end-
Received on Mon 15 Apr 2013 03:44:05 PM PDT