Asteroid Institute

B612 Sentinel: The First Privately-Funded Deep Space Mission

This morning at the California Academy of Sciences, a team of former astronauts, space scientists, NASA alums, and other concerned citizens of the solar system announced an unprecedented initiative to place a solar-orbiting telescope in deep space. The B612 Foundation wants to map the inner...

Rock On

ASTEROID strikes are the ultimate in low-probability, high-impact events. NASA may soon have help—or competition—from the private non-profit B612 Foundation building the Sentinel spacecraft. And Sentinel, if it flies, won't cost taxpayers a penny.   Read the Article: "Rock On" The Economist (July 7, 2012) ...

Telescope aims to head off asteroids’ impact on Earth

With the space shuttle program over and private companies launching their own spaceships, it’s clear that nongovernment organizations are making a stir in America’s space race. Now the private sector is getting into the space telescope business, too. The first official entrant into this arena wants humanity...

Détecter les astéroïdes pour mieux protéger l’humanité

Les astéroïdes sont-ils une menace majeure pour l'humanité? À en croire l'ancien astronaute de la Nasa Ed Lu, la chose ne fait aucun doute. Il a donc décidé de lancer jeudi, via sa fondation B612 - du nom de l'astéroïde dont est originaire le Petit...

First private deep space mission will search for Earth-destroying asteroids

The B612 Foundation announced the first privately Funded Deep Space Mission yesterday morning. It's called Sentinel, a half-meter infrared telescope designed to look for any asteroids whose orbits will cross the Earth's in the next hundred years, down to thirty meters in size. Construction is...

Asteroid activists launch fund-raising campaign for space telescope

Leaders of the nonprofit B612 Foundation today took the wraps off a campaign to fund and launch a space telescope to hunt for potential killer asteroids — a campaign they portrayed as a cosmic civic improvement project. Former NASA astronaut Ed Lu, the foundation's chairman and CEO, estimated that...

Asteroid Hunter to Be First Private Deep-Space Mission?

How the Sentinel (Asteroid Hunter) Mission will be the perfect storm in the first private deep space mission.There's no doubt about it that a properly designed, space-based observatory could rapidly find most of the near-Earth objects that could represent a potential threat to the Earth." Read...