In an effort to provide the planet with advanced warning relating to inbound space debris, the Canadian Space Agency is currently preparing to launch the world’s first microsatellite that will focus solely on seeking out and tracking collision-course and near-Earth asteroids.
NEOSSat microsatellite set to search out and track deadly asteroids. Image: CSA.
The Canadian-led mission is due to take place in 2010 and, once successfully settled into orbit, the surprisingly small $12 million Near Earth Object Surveillance Satellite (NEOSSat) will transmit round-the-clock research data to a team of ground-based scientists.
NEOSSat has been developed to offer far greater flexibility that the Hubble Space Telescope, and will provide scientists with a massive variety of visual perspectives and tracking capabilities thanks to its unprecedented powers of orbital manoeuvrability reports Canada.com.
Alan Hildebrand, a geologist with the University of Calgary and leader of the NESS asteroid search project, has outlined that there are approximately 100,000 large asteroids littered throughout our galaxy, but only around 5,000 have thus far been uncovered and documented.
It is hoped that the level of focused telescopic access provided by NEOSSat will greatly increase that figure.
Speaking at a recent technical briefing held for the media, Hildebrand highlighted Hollywood’s recent role in increasing awareness of near-Earth asteroids and potential planet-destroying objects through the likes of Deep Impact and Armageddon.
However, he also noted that the budgets attached to these fictional summer blockbusters would cover existing scientific efforts to locate and track potentially dangerous space debris many times over.
“What did it cost to produce one of those movies? It must have been $200 million,” commented Hildebrand. “All the asteroid tracking efforts are still less than that. We still haven’t re-ordered our priorities enough to this theory.”
Under construction by Ontario-based Dynacon Inc., and co-funded by Defence Research Development Canada and the Canadian Space Agency, the asteroid-seeking NEOSSat device will reportedly weigh just 65 kilograms and have a physical scale similar to that of a large suitcase.
“NEOSSat requires remarkable agility and pointing stability that has never before been achieved by a microsatellite,” explained David Cooper, general manager of Dynacon. “It must rapidly spin to point at new locations hundreds of times per day, each time screeching to a halt to hold rock steady on a distant target, or precisely track a satellite along its orbit, and image-on-the-run.”
Beyond searching out potentially harmful space debris, the NEOSSat will also monitor and track other satellites to help avoid orbital collisions.
In terms of the likelihood of future Earth impacts of a significant size, and the potential for massive human casualties, this week marks the 100th anniversary of the devastating Tunguska Event.
Believed to be 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima at the climax of the second world war, the Tunguska Event was caused when an impact-bound asteroid exploded and broke apart only a few kilometres above the Earth’s surface in a remote part of Russia.
If such an event were to take place above a thriving modern city, the amount of damage caused would likely see the city levelled while loss of life would also be potentially catastrophic.
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