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By Space Force
Space Operations Command completed its first certification exercise, certifying teams as combat ready to enter the first SPAFORGEN’s ‘commit’ phase.
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By NASA
5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
This artist’s concept depicts an asteroid drifting through space. Many such objects frequently pass Earth. To help prepare for the discovery of one with a chance of impacting our planet, NASA leads regular exercises to figure out how the international community could respond to such a threat.NASA/JPL-Caltech The fifth Planetary Defense Interagency Tabletop Exercise focused on an asteroid impact scenario designed by NASA JPL’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies.
A large asteroid impacting Earth is highly unlikely for the foreseeable future. But because the damage from such an event could be great, NASA leads hypothetical asteroid impact “tabletop” exercises every two years with experts and decision-makers from federal and international agencies to address the many uncertainties of an impact scenario. The most recent exercise took place this past April, with a preliminary report being issued on June 20.
Making such a scenario realistic and useful for all involved is no small task. Scientists from the Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which specializes in the tracking and orbital determination of asteroids and comets and finding out if any are hazards to Earth, have played a major role in designing these exercises since the first 11 years ago.
“These hypothetical scenarios are complex and take significant effort to design, so our purpose is to make them useful and challenging for exercise participants and decision-makers to hone their processes and procedures to quickly come to a plan of action while addressing gaps in the planetary defense community’s knowledge,” said JPL’s Paul Chodas, the director of CNEOS.
The Impact Scenario
This year’s scenario: A hypothetical asteroid, possibly several hundred yards across, has been discovered, with an estimated 72% chance of impacting Earth in 14 years. Potential impact locations include heavily populated areas in North America, Southern Europe, and North Africa, but there is still a 28% chance the asteroid will miss Earth. After several months of being tracked, the asteroid moves too close to the Sun, making further observations impossible for another seven months. Decision-makers must figure out what to do.
Explore asteroids and near-Earth objects in real-time 3D Leading the exercise was NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO), the Federal Emergency Management Agency Response Directorate, and the Department of State Office of Space Affairs. Over the course of two days in April, participants gathered at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, which hosted the event, to consider the potential national and global responses to the scenario.
“This was a very successful tabletop exercise, with nearly 100 participants from U.S. government agencies and, for the first time, international planetary defense experts,” said Terik Daly from APL, who coordinated the exercise. “An asteroid impact would have severe national and international ramifications, so should this scenario play out for real, we’d need international collaboration.”
Reality Informs Fiction
In real life, CNEOS calculates the orbit of every known near-Earth object to provide assessments of future potential impact hazards in support of NASA’s planetary defense program. To make this scenario realistic, the CNEOS team simulated all the observations in the months leading up to the exercise and used orbital determination calculations to simulate the probability of impact.
“At this point in time, the impact was likely but not yet certain, and there were significant uncertainties in the object’s size and the impact location,” said Davide Farnocchia, a navigation engineer at JPL and CNEOS, who led the design of the asteroid’s orbit. “It was interesting to see how this affected the decision-makers’ choices and how the international community might respond to a real-world threat 14 years out.”
Options to Deflect
Preparation, planning, and decision-making have been key focal points of all five exercises that have taken place over the past 11 years. For instance, could a reconnaissance spacecraft be sent to the asteroid to gather additional data on its orbit and better determine its size and mass? Would it also be feasible to attempt deflecting the asteroid so that it would miss Earth? The viability of this method was recently demonstrated by NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), which impacted the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos on Sept. 26, 2022, slightly changing its trajectory. Other methods of deflection have also been considered during the exercises.
But any deflection or reconnaissance mission would need many years of preparation, requiring the use of advanced observatories capable of finding hazardous asteroids as early as possible. NASA’s Near-Earth Object Surveyor, or NEO Surveyor, is one such observatory. Managed by JPL and planned for launch in late 2027, the infrared space telescope will detect light and dark asteroids, including those that orbit near the Sun. In doing so, NEO Surveyor will support PDCO’s objectives to discover any hazardous asteroids as early as possible so that there would be more time to launch a deflection mission to potential threats.
To find out the outcome of the exercise, read NASA’s preliminary summary.
For more information about CNEOS, visit:
https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/
NASA Study: Asteroid’s Orbit, Shape Changed After DART Impact NASA Program Predicted Impact of Small Asteroid Over Ontario, Canada Classroom Activity: Modeling an Asteroid News Media Contacts
Ian J. O’Neill
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-2649
ian.j.oneill@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Charles Blue
NASA Headquarters
202-358-1600 / 202-802-5345
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / charles.e.blue@nasa.gov
2024-094
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Last Updated Jul 02, 2024 Related Terms
Asteroids NEA Scout (Near Earth Asteroid Scout) NEO Surveyor (Near-Earth Object Surveyor Space Telescope) Planetary Defense Planetary Defense Coordination Office Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA) Explore More
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By NASA
4 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
The Bronco Space team assembles its Bronco Ember technology, which uses a short-wave infrared camera with AI to improve early wildfire detection.Credit: Bronco Space NASA’s public competitions can catalyze big changes – not just for the agency but also for participants. Bronco Space, the CubeSat laboratory at California State Polytechnic University in Pomona, California, matured more than just space technology as a result of winning funds from NASA’s TechLeap Prize competition. It grew from its roots in a broom closet to a newly built lab on campus, expanding its capacity to mature space technologies long into the future.
The TechLeap Prize seeks to rapidly identify and develop space technologies through a series of challenges that each address a specific technology need for NASA and the nation. In addition to a cash prize, winners receive access to a suborbital or orbital flight opportunity on a commercial flight platform. Bronco Space won $500,000 in the inaugural TechLeap Prize, Autonomous Observation Challenge, launched in 2021. The challenge sought small spacecraft technologies that could autonomously detect, locate, track, and collect data on transient events on Earth and beyond. The team, made up of both undergraduate and graduate students, developed and launched a wildfire detection system called Bronco Ember, which used a short-wave infrared camera with AI (artificial intelligence) to improve early wildfire detection.
Zachary Gaines was an undergraduate student when he participated in the first challenge through TechLeap with Bronco Space. He has since graduated and now supervises the lab at Cal Poly Pomona. Gaines notes how the prize gave the team flexibility to invest in their lab and expand the university’s technology development and maturation capabilities.
“Because TechLeap gave us prize money rather than a grant, we had the freedom to invest those funds,” said Gaines. “If we want to make a real-world impact, which we always want to do, we needed a real lab with equipment. Thanks to TechLeap, we now have space in an innovation village right outside of campus.”
In 2022, Gaines was also involved in Bronco Space’s second time participating in TechLeap as part of the first Nighttime Precision Landing Challenge. The competition sought sensing systems to detect surface hazards from at least 250 meters high and process the data in real-time to generate a terrain map suitable for a spacecraft to land safely in the dark. As one of three winners eligible to receive up to $650,000 each, Bronco Space developed a system using a light projector to create an initial geometry map for landing. The system then uses LIDAR (light detection and ranging) along with advances in computer vision, machine learning, robotics, and computing to generate a map that reconstructs lunar terrain.
A demo of the 3D digital “twin” app created by PRISM Intelligence for NASA’s Entrepreneurs Challenge.Credit: Bronco Space From the experience with TechLeap, Gaines and other team members formed the small business Pegasus Intelligence and Space, now PRISM Intelligence, and participated in another challenge – NASA’s Entrepreneurs Challenge. This competition seeks the development and commercialization of lunar payloads and climate science through an entrepreneurial and venture lens to advance the Agency’s science exploration goals. The company’s technology, also called PRISM, is a 3D digital map of the world that uses AI to make the “twin” world searchable. The challenge encouraged Gaines and the PRISM team to bridge the gap between available data and consumer end-users. PRISM was a Round 2 winner of the challenge, receiving a share of the $1 million prize as well as exposure to external funders and investors.
Gaines traces the success of PRISM back to his first TechLeap experience: “The company wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t done TechLeap. It helped me understand how to develop technologies for industry.”
The company and the university continue to secure NASA support. In December 2023, Cal Poly Pomona was selected to receive a two-year funded cooperative agreement through NASA’s University SmallSat Technology Partnership.
“When people invest in your ideas and continue to support them, they help you get smarter and increase your understanding of people’s needs,” said Gaines. “Building technologies with the goal of a real-world impact is really motivating.”
Members of Bronco Space developed a sensing system that generates a map for precise spacecraft landing as part of NASA’s second TechLeap competition.Credit: Bronco SpaceView the full article
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By NASA
1 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Credits: NASA NASA and the Hudson Square Business Improvement District are launching an open call to New York-based artists and artist teams to design and install a large-scale, space-themed neighborhood mural. The NASA x Hudson Square partnership was developed to inspire the surrounding Manhattan Hudson Square community by showcasing NASA’s work and missions.
Artists are encouraged to submit proposals for the project and detail how their mural will illustrate the impact of NASA’s priorities, such as the agency’s James Webb Space Telescope, climate science and innovation, and the Artemis campaign exploring the Moon. Applications are due by Friday, June 28.
The selected project will receive a $20,000 award for design fees, materials, labor, and equipment, with a portion of funds provided by NASA and matched by Hudson Square Business Improvement District. The mural installation is expected to be complete by September.
NASA continues to seek opportunities to inspire the next generation of explorers – the Artemis Generation – through collaborations with partners like the Hudson Square Business Improvement District. Details about submitting project proposals are available on the Hudson Square web page. For questions about applying to the NASA x Hudson Square mural project, contact PublicArt@HudsonSquareBID.org.
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Last Updated Jun 25, 2024 Related Terms
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