Updates on Arecibo Telescope Funding Issues and its Triple Asteroid Discovery

Image credit: Michael Nolan, Arecibo Observatory. These radar images of near-Earth asteroid 2001 SN263 were obtained on 2008 Feb 12 and 13. The resolution is 75m (250 feet) per pixel. Because the moons are rotating more slowly than the larger "primary", they appear narrower to the radar, which measures distance and speed. Arecibo transmitted 500 000 Watts toward the asteroid, but the echo power received with Arecibo's ultra-sensitive detectors and processed into these images totals less than a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a watt. Arecibo is both the world's most powerful radar transmitter and the world's most sensitive radio receiver. This experiment produced 75-meter-resolution images of a 2-km asteroid when it was about 11,000,000 km away. This is like using a camera in New York to image a person in Los Angeles with one-inch resolution.

Selections from the article (note there is also an associated press release on Arecibo's discovery of a triple asteroid 2001 SN263, the first one of its kind found)...

Nolan [Michael Nolan, research associate and head of radar astronomy at Arecibo] said Arecibo’s budget is now $12.5 million per year, but it will be cut 10 percent in 2009, and 40 percent by 2011.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Cal., a member of the House Committee on Science and Technology, has co-sponsored a bill in a bi-partisan effort to appeal to NASA and the NSF to keep Arecibo running. He is sponsoring the bill with Luis Fortuna, resident commissioner of Puerto Rico, a nonvoting member of the House of Representatives.

Tara Setmayer, communications director for Rohrabacher, said the bill will ask for the NSF to fully fund Arecibo, allowing scientists to continue their work in radio astronomy and solar system research. It does not specify exactly how much funding should be set aside.

The bill also calls for cooperation between NASA and the NSF.

Nolan said the Arecibo telescope gathers data rather than taking pictures of the asteroid. He said scientists bounce radio waves off the asteroid and then use the data they obtain to find out the rock’s mass, density, orbit and other features.

“You send out a narrow pulse and first it bounces off the front of the asteroid,” he said. “And then a few microseconds later it bounces off a piece farther away, and so we can sort of patch that back together and make these images.”

Cornell research associate Ellen Howell said as the asteroid spins, astronomers make a two-dimensional image of it on their computers.

Howell said Arecibo’s capabilities are unique, because it can react quickly to new discoveries by approving urgent proposals for additional observation.

“Sometimes in as little as three or four hours, we can change the schedule, get all the right people assembled and get the telescope going,” Howell said.

Howell said she and her colleagues had been planning to look at the near-Earth asteroid, known as 2001 SN263, for a while. She and other astronomers thought it was simply a large rock and did not realize it has two moons.

“We didn’t know there was anything special about it until we got the first images,” she said.

Nolan said the main rock in the asteroid’s system is 2.7 km in diameter, or about 1.5 miles. Howell said the largest moon is half that size, and the smaller moon is 1000 m in diameter.

Howell said the triple asteroid is the closest one to Earth astronomers have ever found, though they have seen binary asteroids, with only one moon, close to Earth before.

The discovery raises many questions for Howell and her fellow astronomers, such as whether this triple system is stable and whether it formed as a three-part asteroid or picked up the third rock later.

Setmayer said Rohrabacher believes maintaining Arecibo is vital to national security, since its use of radar makes it uniquely suited for finding potentially dangerous near-Earth objects.

"Cornell telescope lacks funding despite rare asteroid discovery"
Clara Eisinger
The Ithacan
06 March 2008

Link: Article

Link: Cornell University Press Release on Triple Asteroid Discovery (13 Feb. 2008)

link: Arecibo Images and New Release

U.S. Congress Legislation on NEOs: H.R. 4917 NEO Preparedness Act

Dale Brownfield at the Gaiashield Group is trying to get people to sign up to support H.R. 4917 NEO Preparedness Act, a proposed bill in the U.S. House of Representatives sponsered by California Republican Dana Rohrabacher that seeks to establish a NEO office within NASA (referred to as the Office of Potentially Hazardous Near-Earth Object Preparedness). Notable sections of the legislation include the following...

SEC. 4. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE OFFICE OF POTENTIALLY HARADOUS NEAR-EARTH OBJECTS, IDENTIFICATION OF SITUATION- AND DECISION-ANALYSIS FACTORS, AND SELECTION OF PROCEDURES AND SYSTEMS.

(a) Establishment- The Administrator shall establish the Office of Potentially Hazardous Near-Earth Object Preparedness (in this Act referred to as `Office'). The purpose of the Office shall be to prepare the United States for readiness to avoid and to mitigate collisions with potentially hazardous near-Earth objects in collaboration with other Agencies through the identification of situation- and decision-analysis factors and selection of procedures and systems.

(b) Identification of Situation- and Decision-Analysis Factors- The Office shall identify situation- and decision-analysis factors, in collaboration with other Agencies, by determining--

(1) the needed objective technical and nontechnical criteria upon which to analyze potentially hazardous near-Earth object collision information and to base key threat elimination-decisions and options;

(2) the implications of such decisions and options;

(3) the human skills needed to make key threat elimination-decisions and the preparation required for individuals making such decisions;

(4) the factors needed to formulate key techical and policy questions involving such decisions;

(5) methods for determining and sequencing the minimum possible time periods needed to make such decisions;

(6) a model deflection and mitigation decision logic flow, including provisions for minimizing--

(A) human exposure,

(B) energy, cost, and time, and

(C) the risk of return of potentially hazardous near-Earth objects; and

(7) additional critical information needs, technological developments, public confidence building initiatives, and any other needs involving the threat of collisons of potentially hazardous near-Earth objects with Earth.

(c) Selection of Procedures and Systems- The Office shall select procedures and systems by--

(1) surveying the existing deflection proposals and examining each proposal for critical elements including capability, suitability, feasibility, cost, cost effectiveness, required human and capital resources, and maturity of needed key technologies;

(2) with the results from subsection (a) and input from other appropriate sources, performing an architectural tradeoff assessment and selecting a set of deflection proposals as primary procedures and systems that will provide the best opportunities for deflection-preparation, taking into account adequate- and short-warning collision timelines, as well as relevant asteroid and comet characteristics;

(3) for each selected primary procedure and system--

(A) identifying the best backup;

(B) defining the steps needed to realize immature key technologies;

(C) developing preliminary models;

(D) performing a predicted results error-analysis in order to confirm the characteristics described in subsection (a);

(E) projecting time to readiness;

(F) formulating an implementation phase to achieve full deflection readiness;

(G) establishing implementation timelines with measurable interim goals, and steps to transfer the procedure and system resources to the implementation phase; and

(H) identifying the crucial policy decisions needed for implemention; and

(4) indicating possible coordination with other Agencies to facilitate such activities.

SEC. 5. REPORTS.

The Administrator shall submit to the Congress the following reports:

(1) Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of this Act, an interim report that summarizes a preliminary result of the activities of the Office carried out under sections 4(b) and 4(c)(1)-(2).

(2) Not later than 2 years after the date of enactment of this Act, a concluding report that summarizes all activities of the Office carried out under section 4.

SEC. 6. NASA ADVISORY COUNSEL.

The Administrator shall convene the NASA Advisory Council--

(1) not later than 90 days after submitting the interim report required by section 5(1), to provide the Administrator with advice for the concluding report; and

(2) not later than 90 days after submitting concluding report required by section 5(2), to provide the Administrator with advice for subsequent activities under section 4.


Link: H.R. 4917 NEO Preparedness Act

Link: Gaia Shield Group Site

Link: Gaia Shield Letter to Congress

NASA Ames 2008 Small Spacecraft Summer Study Project (S4P): Near Earth Objects

NASA Ames will be having a summer study workshop related to designs of Near Earth Object (NEO) missions. From the summer study homepage...

This summer, twelve students will be selected to participate in a 10-week program to develop and test ideas for small spacecraft exploration of Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) ideas that will ultimately lead to a mission proposal. The program has three goals:

1. Develop and test rigorously one or two concepts for NEO small spacecraft exploration that are expected to lead to competitive mission proposals or flight opportunities.
2. Integrate Bay Area expertise related to this promising new area of small spacecraft mission design using NASA Ames Research Center as the hub.
3. Train the next generation of scientists, engineers and project managers who will design and lead upcoming missions to NEOs and other solar system bodies.

Link: NASA Ames Summer Study Homepage

ESA's Advanced Concepts Team (ACT) Requests Ideas for NEO-Related Studies

The Advanced Concepts Team (ACT) of the European Space Agency (ESA) has released their 2008 Ariadna Call for Proposals. This call solicits studies related to NEOs. There is a zip file containing multiple documents related to the call.

From the call...

The main aim of this Call for Ideas is to attract proposals for new and innovative scientific and technical studies, which will act as the first steps towards increasing our knowledge and level of preparation for the initiation of a NEO hazard mitigation response. Several study proposals will be accepted and these will lead to parallel medium term (4 month) research studies carried out in collaboration with ESA.

Although mitigation and deflection options and requirements will be the primary focus of the studies, proposals will be welcomed from all fields of NEO research (e.g. innovative methods for detection and characterisation, impact effects, dynamics and simulations) and other fields of scientific and technical research provided the importance and benefit of the study can be justified with reference to:

1. Acquiring the capacity to utilise a NEO close encounter for research and technological demonstrations, and/or

2. Ensuring that a successful mitigation or deflection mission of a potential Earth impacting object will soon be comfortably within our technological capabilities.

This Call for Ideas intends to focus on working together with members of the academic community with the goal to first define a step-by-step approach of the underlying research needed to effectively tackle Apophis-class asteroid impacts, and then subsequently to perform the first research steps in the proposed approach. The close fly-by of Apophis will be considered as a representative reference scenario.

The scientific and technical content of the study proposal will be of great importance but in addition particular emphasis shall be put on the logical integration and credibility of the proposed study as a first research step in a roadmap of required events and steps.

Therefore, as part of the proposal, researchers are expected to provide a consistent roadmap within their field of expertise, including brief descriptions of the underlying logic, the key steps and approximate timeline over the next two decades specifically for dealing with Apophis-class objects (in terms of size but not necessarily in terms of orbital characteristics or expected physical properties).
The proposed milestones contained within the timeline are expected to represent credible solutions, possible to achieve with the right amount of research, funding and direction. A generic roadmap is not expected, as ESA will eventually assemble all of the individual, specific roadmaps into on overall map integrating many fields of expertise. Instead the timeline should be specifically tailored to the researchers’ expertise and should demonstrate the suitability of the proposed research study to act as a first building block within the proposed roadmap.
This roadmap should include:

1. An assessment of the likely status of asteroid knowledge and technology in 2029.
2. An assessment of the desired status of asteroid knowledge and technology by 2029.
3. Some recommendations/steps required in order to achieve the desired technological goals by 2029 in order to make full use of the Apophis encounter for the definition of a reliable mitigation option

The recommendations/steps may include:

a. What research is key to reach the necessary technological level by 2029?
b. Identification of possible demonstration opportunities of space mission technologies over the next 20 years?
c. Processes necessary to have systems ready and in place, in preparation for the mitigation of an asteroid impact?

All findings and predictions are to be based on sound scientific and technological knowledge and realistic predictions. Proposers are encouraged to underline their reasoning with references to published papers and research results.
The proposed Call for Ideas research studies should be feasible and constitute an important first step towards reaching the goals, as defined in the proposers’ roadmap, by 2029. The study can lead directly to progress in the proposers’ area(s) of expertise or alternatively provide a valuable, valid contribution towards achieving targets in another field of NEO research and technology. Unpublished, innovative ideas and concepts are strongly encouraged and will be regarded positively.

Link: ESA Ariadna Open Calls Homepage

Link: Download Ariadna Call for Ideas 2008, Encounter 2029

SGAC's Alex Karl Gives Presentation on NEOs and Youth Perspective from UNCOPUS S&T Meeting

My Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC) colleague, Alexander Karl, presented on behalf of the SGAC, to the recent UNCOPUS (United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space) Scientific and Technical Subcommittee meeting (2008 Forty-Fifth Session, (11-22 February 2008) on Near Earth Objects and a recent youth survey the SGAC has conducted. I believe SGAC will continue this survey process and refine it. Here is a YouTube video link as well as link to the overall presentation.

Link: YouTube Video: NEOs - A Youth Perspective, Presentation given by SGAC Co-Chair Alex Karl during UNCOPUOS S&T 2008

NEO's - A Youth Perspective
Mr. Alex Karl (SGAC)
Link: Presentation

SpaceViz Planetary Defense Documentary

One can now purchase the planetary defense documentary from SpaceViz. They had previews on YouTube.

Link: Amazon.com: Planetary Defense Video from SpaceViz Productions

Link: SpaceViz Homepage

Link: Planetary Defense Documentary Clips from SpaceViz

Link: YouTube Group from SpaceViz

Several NEO Related Presentations from the Recent UN COPUS Scientific and Technical Subcommittee

The UNCOPUS (United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space) Scientific and Technical Subcommittee meeting this year (2008 Forty-fifth session) has many relevant presentations related to NEOs. Here are the specific links to the presentations.

ASE Decision Program for Asteroid Threat Mitigation
Mr. Tom Jones (ASE)
Link: Presentation

NEO Research Activities at the German Aerospace Center DLR
Mr. Ekkehard Kürth (Germany)
Link: Presentation

Asteroid-Comet Hazard Problem: Activities in Russia
Mr. Boris Shustov (Russian Federation)
Link: Presentation

Earth Threatening Asteroids: Issues and Future Actions
Mr. William Ailor (USA)
Link: Presentation

NEO's - A Youth Perspective
Mr. Alex Karl (SGAC)
Link: Presentation

Links: UN COPUS presentations from Scientific and Technical Subcommittee: 2008 Forty-fifth session (11-22 February 2008)

SpaceWorks Engineering, Inc. (SEI) and SpaceDev, Inc. Win Planetary Society's International Apophis Mission Design Competition

Finally the results...our team consisting of SpaceWorks Engineering and SpaceDev won the Apophis Mission Design Competition. Congratulations to our entire team and the rest of the winners. Here is a summary with links to press releases, news stories, etc.

Summary:

Engineering services and concept development firm SpaceWorks Engineering, Inc. (SEI) and innovative space systems provider SpaceDev, Inc. announce that their Foresight radio beacon spacecraft design has won the Planetary Society's international Apophis mission design competition. The competition' s purpose was to design a "tagging" mission to improve knowledge of the asteroid Apophis' orbit. More than thirty international teams entered the contest.

Links:

Link: SEI Press Release
Link: Planetary Society competition summary page
Link: Planetary Society press release
Link: Planetary Society winners announcement

A two page executive summary of the Foresight spacecraft can be found here: Foresight Flyer.

SEI/SpaceDev's five page presentation from the press conference at the Planetary Society on 26 February 2008 can be found here: Foresight Presentation at The Planetary Society Press Conference.

The full report can be found here: Foresight Final Report.

Foresight spacecraft images can be found below and at the SEI Image Gallery.

Other Media Stories:
Link: Wired.com article
Link: BBC News Article

Planetary Society's Target Earth Initiative on NEO Threat (also update on results for their Apophis Mission Design Competition, now mid to late Feb.)

Asteroid impact on early Earth. Some scientists believe that impacts such as this during the Late Heavy Bombardment period, 4 billion years ago, may have delivered primitive life to Earth. Credit: Don Davis.

Selections from the news release...

To mark the 100th anniversary of the Tunguska event, when an exploding asteroid leveled 2000 square kilometers of Siberian forest, The Planetary Society today kicked off a year-long focus on Target Earth. The asteroid believed responsible for the cataclysm on June 30, 1908 became a fireball from the sky and knocked pine trees over like matchsticks near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Russia. Such an explosion today over more populated areas could lay waste an entire city.

Target Earth will focus on a variety of NEO projects supported by The Planetary Society, including the Apophis Mission Design Competition, the Gene Shoemaker Near Earth Object Grants, NEO mission advocacy, and a one-hour HD TV “Daily Planet” special on asteroids being produced by Discovery Canada.

In mid-to late February, the Society will announce the winners of the Apophis Mission Design Competition, which invited participants to compete for $50,000 in prizes by designing a mission to rendezvous with and "tag" a potentially dangerous near-Earth asteroid. The competition received 37 mission proposals from 19 countries on 6 continents.

"Planetary Society Takes Aim at Target Earth"
Planetary Society News Release
29 January 2008

Link: Planetary Society News Release on "Target Earth": 29 January 2008

Update on 2007 WD5

From Planetary Society Blog (Emily Lakdawalla)...

"WD5 most likely missed Mars, but we may never know"
Feb. 4, 2008 | 12:15 PST | 20:15 UTC

I just chatted with Steven Chesley of JPL's Near Earth Object program about the fate of 2007 WD5, the could-have-hit-Mars-but-most-likely-didn't asteroid. He said that based on the orbit predicted from the last observations of the asteroid, which were taken on January 9, they think it missed Mars by 6.5 Mars radii, which is a near miss in solar system terms but very far from the bull's eye if what you really wanted to see from the encounter was a new crater on Mars. (For those of you interested in the statistics, I asked him what the 1-sigma and 3-sigma uncertainties in the miss distance were; they were 1.8 and 2.2 Mars radii, respectively.)

Now, a 6.5-Mars-radius flyby is quite close enough to alter the course of WD5 significantly. Where's it going to go next? The answer is, no one knows. The uncertainty surrounding WD5's exact position with respect to Mars during the encounter hugely balloons when you try to figure out its future path. It essentially got a gravity assist from Mars, but without knowing exactly at what distance and, equally importantly, at what latitude it flew past the planet, we have no idea where Mars flung it. Mars isn't big enough to send an asteroid right out of the solar system (only Jupiter has strong enough gravity to pull off that trick), but a close flyby can really seriously change the orbit of a small body like WD5.

Link: Planetary Society Blog