A constellation of MicroSats to search for NEOs

Michael Shao; Hanying Zhou; Slava G. Turyshev; Chengxing Zhai; Navtej Saini; Russell Trahan

doi:10.1117/12.2322414

18 September 2018 A constellation of MicroSats to search for NEOs

Michael Shao, Hanying Zhou, Slava G. Turyshev, Chengxing Zhai, Navtej Saini, Russell Trahan

Proceedings Volume 10769, CubeSats and NanoSats for Remote Sensing II; 107690K (2018) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2322414
Event: SPIE Optical Engineering + Applications, 2018, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

Large or even medium sized asteroids impacting the Earth can cause damage on a global scale. Existing and planned concepts for finding near-Earth objects (NEOs) with diameter of 140 m or larger would take ~15-20 years of observation to find ~90% of them. This includes both ground and space based projects. For smaller NEOs (~50-70 m in diameter), the time scale is many decades. The reason it takes so long to detect these objects is because most of the NEOs have highly elliptical orbits that bring them into the inner solar system once per orbit. If these objects cross the Earth's orbit when the Earth is on the other side of the Sun, they will not be detected by facilities on or around the Erath. A constellation of MicroSats in orbit around the Sun can dramatically reduce the time needed to find 90% of NEOs ~100-140 m in diameter.

Conference Presentation

Citation Download Citation

Michael Shao, Hanying Zhou, Slava G. Turyshev, Chengxing Zhai, Navtej Saini, and Russell Trahan "A constellation of MicroSats to search for NEOs", Proc. SPIE 10769, CubeSats and NanoSats for Remote Sensing II, 107690K (18 September 2018); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2322414

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