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posted on February 15, 2013 by
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Ed Lu’s Message: Our Cosmic Challenge

russian meteor slider

images courtesy of independent.co.uk, thesun.co.uk, cnn.com

 

The B612 Foundation believes we should find threatening asteroids before they find us. Today’s meteor explosion over Chelyabinsk is a wake-up call that the Earth orbits the Sun in a shooting gallery of asteroids, and that these asteroids sometimes hit the Earth. Later today, a separate and larger asteroid, 2012 DA14, narrowly missed the Earth passing beneath the orbits of our communications satellites. We have the technology to deflect asteroids, but we cannot do anything about the objects we don’t know exist. To date, less than 1% of asteroids larger than the one that leveled Tunguska in 1908 have been tracked. The B612 Foundation Sentinel Space Telescope, to be launched in 2018, will provide a comprehensive map of the locations and trajectories of threatening asteroids and will give humanity the decades of warning needed to prevent asteroid impacts with existing technology. By the end of its planned lifetime, Sentinel will have discovered well over 90% of the asteroids that could destroy entire regions of Earth on impact (those larger than 350ft in diameter) and more than 50% of the currently unknown DA14-like near-Earth asteroids.

The B612 Foundation has undertaken this Sentinel project as a non-governmental initiative, somewhat akin to a growing number of private space ventures originated in the past few years. The foundation, however, is not undertaking this project for profit; we are a non-profit corporation. Our motivation is strictly to ensure the survival of life on Earth – all of it. And while NASA is cooperating with us by providing certain communication and analytic services, we are excited, as a private venture, to welcome the participation of all the crew of Spaceship Earth in this great endeavor.

Does the crew of Spaceship Earth raise our awareness and accept responsibility for our voyage into the future? Or do we sit back as passengers, comfortably assuming that there must be a captain and crew doing this job on our behalf?

The B612 Sentinel mission is testament to our belief that we, together, are responsible for the future of life on our small planet; we invite you to join us in addressing this cosmic challenge.

*****

B612′s co-founder and Chair Emeritus Rusty Schweickart has an important op-ed posted today in The Guardian. Please take a moment to read his thoughts, too.

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posted on February 4, 2013 by
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DA14: A Wake Up Call from Space

On February 15th, the people of planet Earth will receive a wake-up call from our Solar System.  Asteroid 2012 DA14, discovered just 1 year ago, will narrowly miss hitting the Earth by only 17 thousand miles.  That is about the distance the Earth travels in just 15 minutes, so this truly is a close shave.  In fact, 2012 DA14 will pass underneath our communications satellites as it flies by Earth!

Image: NASA

Image: NASA

This particular asteroid is not large, only about 160 feet across or roughly the size of an office building, and is not going to hit us on February 15th anyhow.  But consider that just 105 years ago, an asteroid slightly smaller than this struck Earth in Siberia near Tunguska, and completely flattened a forested area of 1000 square miles, which is larger than metropolitan New York City or Washington DC!

tunguska

1000 square miles of trees blown over like matchsticks!

 

The area of destruction at Tunguska compared to some large cities (from http://www.astro.virginia.edu/class/oconnell/astr121/guide22.html )

The area of destruction at Tunguska compared to some large cities (from http://www.astro.virginia.edu/class/oconnell/astr121/guide22.html )

2012 DA14 is what is known as a Near Earth Asteroid because its orbit crosses Earth’s orbit, and it may therefore someday run into Earth.  Of the million asteroids as large as or larger than 2012 DA14, we have only tracked less than 10,000.  So the fact that we knew ahead of time that 2012 DA14 is about to buzz by Earth is really only a matter of luck.  Ninety nine percent of the time we are oblivious, simply because we have not mapped and tracked 99 percent of Near Earth Asteroids.

Now consider the fact that we can actually deflect an asteroid from hitting Earth (which by the way is enormously easier than capturing an asteroid or for that matter mining one), and it seems crazy that we haven’t yet mapped these million asteroids that threaten Earth.

Shouldn’t we know in advance of the next asteroid impact, and actually prevent it?

Click here for our FAQ on 2012 DA14

Click here to learn more about our work.

 

Filed Under: News Tagged With: , , ,
posted on November 1, 2012 by

Prototype Sensors – B612's Next Contract with Ball Aerospace

A couple of weeks ago, I shared with you the great news that our all-star Sentinel Standing Review Team (SSRT) had carefully reviewed our technical and management plans and found that we are on track towards a successful mission.

However, one of the main recommendations was that before we sign a comprehensive contract with Ball Aerospace to build Sentinel that we go ahead and build prototype versions of our Infrared Imaging Sensors and test them to ensure they perform as expected. The ability of these infrared sensors to operate at 40 degrees Kelvin with unprecedented low noise levels is critical to the success of Sentinel.
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So we have executed a contract with BALL Aerospace, under the leadership of John Troeltzsch, to build and characterize a prototype infrared imaging sensor, which will be a smaller version of the final detector (which is an enormous 12” x 4” sensor).
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You can read more about this in the joint press release issued today. This is one of several critical first steps before we commit to the full spacecraft design and manufacturing contract with BALL that will be signed under a fixed-price agreement. Getting the components and design right, prior to entering into the larger strategic contract, is crucial to our long-term success.
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As we head into the last months of the year, we look forward to sharing with you our B612 end-of-the-year campaign efforts, along with additional updates on our progress and most importantly, how you – our crew members – can help to continue to secure support for the mission.

Filed Under: News, Press Release, Research
posted on October 26, 2012 by

A treasure-trove of objects for astronomers to study

Astronomers are searching for and finding Near Earth Asteroids nearly every day. Recently, some of the new discoveries have been ones that will (or have already!) come close to the Earth. These include asteroids with provisional names 2012 TC4, 2012 TV, and 2012 DA14.
 

See the complete list of close-approaching asteroids HERE.

 
When an asteroid gets closer to Earth than the Moon, it gets our attention: it is in our “cosmic backyard”. How often does this happen? A look at the data for past close encounters HERE shows that we know about roughly half a dozen each month. But if we look forward, we only know one asteroid that will be that close in the next several months. There will be the usual half-dozen; they just haven’t yet been discovered because they aren’t close enough to Earth yet for us to see them. So we will have very little early warning about their close approach, either to let us watch them go by or to do anything about them if they were actually a threat to Earth.
 

This is the motivation for the B612 Foundation’s Sentinel mission. By sending an infrared survey telescope into deep space (beyond Earth orbit), Sentinel will find these objects early, many years before they come close to Earth.

The resulting catalog of Near Earth Asteroids will provide a treasure-trove of objects for astronomers to study as well as provide mission targets for future robotic and even human exploration missions. And, if the catalog shows that an asteroid might pose a threat to Earth, we will know about it soon enough to make a deflection mission possible.

Filed Under: News, Research
posted on October 12, 2012 by
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Yes This Is Rocket Science!

The Sentinel Special Review Team at the Program Concept and Implementation Review (Sept. 13, 2012 in Boulder CO)

 

The process of building, launching and operating the Sentinel Mission is in fact “rocket science”.  And because the mission of Sentinel to find threatening asteroids before they find us is so important, we realized it was crucial that we pull together the best possible talent to help us ensure its success.  That is why we have assembled the Sentinel Special Review Team (SSRT) to provide us unbiased technical and management advice as we go about the task of building Sentinel.   The membership of the SSRT is listed here.  Name any of the largest and most complicated NASA science missions ever flown, and the leadership is likely represented on our team.  It is an honor to get to work together with people of this caliber.

 

The first task of the SSRT was to carry out a program review of Sentinel.  This review, called the Program Concept and Implementation Review was held September 11-13 in Boulder CO, and consisted of briefings by the B612 Foundation and Ball Aerospace (our prime contractor).  The topics included how B612 and Ball Aerospace will manage the development of Sentinel, and technical briefings on each of the major spacecraft subsystems.   The B612 Foundation is pushing the limits of private/commercial space:  a mission of this complexity and scope has never been flown before by a private entity.  The main purpose of the recent SSRT review was to validate our plans for building and managing this mission.  We are pleased to report that the Sentinel project successfully passed this review!  For more details, see this press release.

 

Filed Under: News
posted on September 25, 2012 by
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Private citizens worldwide can make a difference in space exploration

The B612 Foundation is pushing the limits of private sector space exploration.  Our Mission Architect, Scott Hubbard, has an excellent commentary on this trend in the latest issue of Space News.  The really revolutionary aspect of this trend is that private citizens worldwide can make a difference in space exploration by supporting projects of their own choosing, such as the B612 Sentinel project.  But it turns out that throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, space exploration in the form of large ground based telescopes was historically supported this way.  
So we’ve really come full circle.
 
 
Read Scott’s commentary here http://www.spacenews.com/commentaries/120924-commercial-space-science-missions.html and then donate to the Sentinel project here http://b612foundation.org/donate/ !
 
 

Filed Under: News
posted on August 16, 2012 by

Lots of Progress !

Our B612 Foundation technical team spent some time this week visiting our spacecraft contractor, Ball Aerospace (www.ballaerospace.com).  This was a chance for John Troeltszch (http://www.ballaerospace.com/page.jsp?page=187) and his team to brief us on their progress.  Engineering work continues, with updates to the computer and data handling systems, mechanical structures, and infrared detectors.  Changes like this are typical at this stage of development of any space project.  The current projected mass of our spacecraft is 1190 Kg (including maneuvering fuel).

 

On a more lighthearted note, I had a great chance to converse with a lot of people about B612 via an online interactive event on Reddit.

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/y5vn0/i_am_ed_lu_former_nasa_astronaut_and_now_running/

There were questions submitted about all manner of subjects, but the exchange I found most interesting was about why we are searching for asteroids at all.  Can we do anything about it anyhow?  I pointed out to several people that yes indeed we do have the means to deflect asteroids since the amount of velocity that has to be imparted to the asteroid is extremely small, in most cases less than a few thousandths of a MPH, or slower than the crawling speed of a snail.  But this is true only if we know the asteroid is a threat, and if we know many decades ahead of time before the upcoming impact. The earlier you know, the easier it is to deflect. The B612 Sentinel project is designed to do just that.

- Ed

Filed Under: News
posted on August 11, 2012 by

Incoming! Astronomical Show Tonight

This years annual Perseid Meteor Shower promises to be a good one.  Every year on August 11, 12, and 13 the Earth passes through a trail of debris that follows the orbit of Comet Swift-Tuttle.

 
The small bits of debris shed by the comet follow a fixed racetrack pattern around the Sun.  The Earth therefore passes through this racetrack on the same date each year.  As the Earth passes through this stream, these tiny particles cause a shower of meteors.  This years show promises to extra good there is an added bonus.  Three of the brightest objects in the sky will all be aligned in a row: the crescent Moon, the planet Venus, and the planet Jupiter.  So go outside tonight after midnight to a dark spot, look up, and enjoy!
 
 

Filed Under: News