The Near-Earth Object Surveyor Mission
Amy Mainzer, J. Masiero, Paul Abell, J. M. Bauer, W. F. Bottke, B. J. Buratti, S. Carey, Desireé Cotto-Figueroa, R. M. Cutri, Dar Dahlen, Peter Eisenhardt, Y. R. Fernández, Roberto Furfaro, T. Grav, Tom Hoffman, Michael Kelley, Yoonyoung Kim, J. Davy Kirkpatrick, Christopher R. Lawler, E. Lilly, X. Liu, Federico Marocco, K. A. Marsh, Frank J. Masci, Craig W. McMurtry, Milad Pourrahmani, Lennon Reinhart, Michael E. Ressler, Akash Satpathy, Charles Schambeau, S. Sonnett, T. B. Spahr, J. Surace, Mar Vaquero, E. L. Wright, Gregory R. Zengilowski, NEO Surveyor Mission Team
Abstract
Abstract The Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor mission is a NASA Observatory designed to discover and characterize asteroids and comets. The mission’s primary objective is to find the majority of objects large enough to cause severe regional impact damage (>140 m in effective spherical diameter) within its 5 yr baseline survey. Operating at the Sun–Earth L1 Lagrange point, the mission will survey to within 45° of the Sun in an effort to find objects in the most Earth-like orbits. The survey cadence is optimized to provide observational arcs long enough to distinguish near-Earth objects from more distant small bodies that cannot pose an impact hazard reliably. Over the course of its survey, NEO Surveyor will discover ∼200,000–300,000 new NEOs down to sizes as small as ∼10 m and thousands of comets, significantly improving our understanding of the probability of an Earth impact over the next century.