NASA Looking To Launch New Space Telescope To Hunt Killer Asteroids

NASA is currently preparing to launch a new space telescope as part of its planetary defense strategy. The main objective of the mission is to hunt down asteroids that are big enough to wipe out entire cities on Earth.

Earlier in September, NASA’s Planetary Defense Officer Lindley Johnson reported that the agency has discovered about 35% of the population of near-Earth objects. Based on NASA’s findings, these space rocks have diameters of at least 450 feet.

Although the agency has already detected almost 8,800 near-Earth asteroids, NASA’s scientists admitted that detecting 500 new space rocks a year can be challenging. To achieve this goal, NASA recently announced that it's preparing to launch a new space telescope known as Near-Earth Object Surveillance Mission (NEOSM), Space.com reported.

For this mission, NASA is targeting to identify 90% of the near-Earth Object population to ensure that the planet is safe from a potential impact event. After all, the agency has stated that the main key to preventing an asteroid impact is early detection.

NEOSM is based on another asteroid-hunting mission known as Near-Earth Object Camera (NEOCam), which was presented to NASA as a project proposal in 2015. Unfortunately, after going through several rounds of deliberations, NEOCam was not selected for launch.

Fortunately for NEOSM, it seems it will not go through the same issues that prevented the launch of NEOCam. In September, an official from NASA confirmed that the agency will proceed with the development of NEOSM. It will be handled by the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

If everything goes well for the agency and once it receives the necessary funding, NASA may be able to launch NEOSM sometime in 2025.

The move by NASA to deploy another space telescope with the goal of hunting asteroids was praised by scientists. According to them, it shows the agency’s commitment to ensuring Earth’s safety.

“NASA's commitment to a space-based asteroid survey is a huge step forward for anyone who cares about human destiny," Richard Binzel, a planetary scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said in a statement. "We are finally going to rely on knowledge, rather than luck, as our plan for dealing with hazardous asteroids."