A team led by the Canadian Space Agency is set to launch a microsatellite designed to detect near-Earth asteroids from space.
The CSA is to launch a suitcase-sized satellite to detect Near Earth Objects. Image: Canadian Space Agency logo. Credit: CSA
The 60-kilogram, $10 million, Near Earth Object Surveillance Satellite (NEOSSat) will search for asteroids between the Earth and Sun, the ones most likely to pose a danger to our planet.
More than 5000 such objects have been found with orbits that would make them a risk of collision with the Earth.
The suitcase-sized satellite will be in a unique position to spot any danger from the asteroids which are often difficult to detect from Earth-based observatories.
"This is the first space-based asteroid-searching telescope, period," said Alan Hildebrand of the University of Calgary, one of two principal scientists for the satellite to reporters.
"It happens that we're the world leaders in this technology," he added.
Hildebrand said the mission also was the basis of further asteroid research.
"I think the most exciting thing about this mission is we are going to find asteroids that are accessible from our planet," Hildebrand said."So I see it as leveraging other exploration, both manned and unmanned," to land on asteroids, reported Canada.com.
"We've been to the moon. There's always more you can do (there), but asteroids have so much more to teach us about the origins of the solar system," he said.
"NEOSSAT may indeed contribute to our knowledge of extremely interior asteroids, and in that light I look forward to what it may find," said Alan Harris of the Space Science Institute in Boulder Colorado, US to the New Scientist.
The satellite will rely on a telescope with a 15-centimetre mirror, similar to that used by amateur astronomers.
It is expected to be launched in two years time.
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