NASA Awards Planetary Defense Space Telescope Launch Services Contract
NASA Awards Planetary Defense Space Telescope Launch Services Contract
PR Nuswire
Washington, 21 February, 2025
Washington, February 21, 2025 / Prnewswire/ – NASA has selected Spacex of Stachx, TexasTo provide launch services for a near-Earth object (NEO) surveyor mission, which will detect and inspect asteroids and comets that will potentially pose an impact for the Earth.
Firm Fix Fixed Price Launch Service Task Order is being provided under indefinite distribution/uncertain amount of NASA Launch Services II contract. The total cost for NASA for launch service is approximately $ 100 millionWhich includes launch service and other mission related costs. The NEO Surveyor Mission has been targeted for not launching in advance September 2027 From a SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket Florida,
The NEO surveyor mission includes a single scientific equipment: approximately 20-inch (50-gram) diameter binoculars that will operate in two heat-sensing infrared wavelengths. It will be able to detect both bright and dark asteroids, later the most difficult type of searching with existing assets. Space telescope is designed to help pursue the protecting efforts of NASA’s planets, which is to find and characterize most of the potentially dangerous asteroids and comets that occur within 30 million miles of the Earth’s orbit. These are collectively known as close-earth objects, or NEOs.
The mission will conduct a five-year baseline survey to find at least two-thirds of unknown NEOs less than 140 meters (460 ft). These are the objects that cause major regional damage in the event of Earth’s influence. By using two heat-sensitive infrared imaging channels, the telescope can also measure more accurate measurements of NEO sizes and get information about their composition, size, rotational states and classrooms.
The mission has been assigned by NASA’s Planetary Science Division to NASA headquarters within the Science Mission Directorate of the Agency. WashingtonThe program is provided by the Oversite NASA’s planetary defense coordination office, which was established in 2016 to manage the efforts in protecting the planet. NASA’s planetary mission program at the agency’s martial space flight center Huntsville, AlabamaThe NEO provides program management for surveyor. The project is being developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Southern California,
Many aerospace and engineering companies are contracted to manufacture spacecraft and its instruments including BAE Systems SMS (Space and Mission Systems), Space Dynamics Laboratory and Telendine. Laboratory for atmospheric and space physics University of Colorado, BoulderOperations, and infrared processing and analysis will support the center California Institute of Technology (Caltech) Pasadena, CaliforniaThe survey is responsible for processing data and producing mission data products. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. Objective The team leadership is included University of California, Los AngelesNASA’s launch service program in agency Kennedy Space Center In Florida The launch is responsible for the management of the service.
For more information about NEO surveyor, see:
https://science.nasa.gov/Mmission/neo-surveyor/
Source NASA
