In real life, CNEOS calculates the orbit of every known near-Earth object to provide assessments of future potential impact hazards in support of NASA’s planetary defense program. To make this scenario realistic, the CNEOS team simulated all the observations in the months leading up to the exercise and used orbital determination calculations to simulate the probability of impact.
“At this point in time, the impact was likely but not yet certain, and there were significant uncertainties in the object’s size and the impact location,” said Davide Farnocchia, a navigation engineer at JPL and CNEOS, who led the design of the asteroid’s orbit. “It was interesting to see how this affected the decision-makers’ choices and how the international community might respond to a real-world threat 14 years out.”
Preparation, planning, and decision-making have been key focal points of all five exercises that have taken place over the past 11 years. For instance, could a reconnaissance spacecraft be sent to the asteroid to gather additional data on its orbit and better determine its size and mass? Would it also be feasible to attempt deflecting the asteroid so that it would miss Earth? The viability of this method was recently demonstrated by NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), which impacted the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos on Sept. 26, 2022, slightly changing its trajectory. Other methods of deflection have also been considered during the exercises.
But any deflection or reconnaissance mission would need many years of preparation, requiring the use of advanced observatories capable of finding hazardous asteroids as early as possible. NASA’s Near-Earth Object Surveyor, or NEO Surveyor, is one such observatory. Managed by JPL and planned for launch in late 2027, the infrared space telescope will detect light and dark asteroids, including those that orbit near the Sun. In doing so, NEO Surveyor will support PDCO’s objectives to discover any hazardous asteroids as early as possible so that there would be more time to launch a deflection mission to potential threats.
To find out the outcome of the exercise, read NASA’s preliminary summary.
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