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.
