The newly announced Asteroid Institute was covered in Jeff Foust’s June 20th article in SpaceNews. The publication noted that the Institute’s work will support research on asteroid detection and planetary defense.

Ed Lu, Executive Director of the Asteroid Institute, discussed that the Institute will focus its work on smaller, but more numerous, near-Earth objects (NEOs). The Institute is also evaluating synthetic tracking to detect smaller asteroids. In collaboration with the DIRAC Center at the University of Washington, the Institute is studying orbital analysis of NEOs through the Asteroid Decision Analysis Machine (ADAM).

You’ll find more of Ed Lu’s commentary by reading the full SpaceNews article: “B612 Studying Smallsat Missions to Search for Near-Earth Objects”

SpaceNews (June 20, 2017)