Canada to launch asteroid hunter

Satellite called showcase for country’s leadership in space science

After last week’s meteor exploded over Russia with the power of several atomic bombs, most Earthlings might prefer space rocks to keep their distance.

Not Alan Hildebrand. The University of Calgary planetary scientist is keen to find space rocks close enough to visit.

“It would be great if there was something half a kilometre in diameter or bigger,” says Hildebrand, who plans to search for near-Earth asteroids with a new Canadian satellite scheduled to blast into orbit early Monday.

The $24 million asteroid hunter, called NEOSSat, is set to launch on an Indian rocket. It is also carrying Canada’s first military satellite, called Sapphire, and two tiny “nanosats” that are part of projects by Austria, Poland and Canada to study the brightest stars in the sky.

Monday’s “hat trick” for Canadian space science, as astronomer Jaymie Matthews of the University of British Columbia describes it, showcases both Canada’s leadership in the miniaturization of space telescopes and the country’s growing role as a “traffic reporter” in space.

NEOSSat, which is the size of a suitcase, will circle the globe every 100 minutes scanning for nearearth asteroids. It will also offer “unprecedented opportunities” for tracking man-made space junk, the Canadian Space Agency says.

Sapphire, which cost $65 million, is also “an eye in the sky for space debris,” Defence Minister Peter MacKay said last fall before the satellite was shipped off to India for launch.

Sapphire, a cube that measures a metre across, will orbit with the sun behind it. This will enable it to pick up the light reflecting off old rocket boosters, dead satellites and debris that threaten operating satellites and spacecraft.

“The Sapphire satellite will be integral to increasing our ability to protect Canadian and allies’ assets

“It would be great if there was something half a kilometre in diameter or bigger.”

ALAN HILDEBRAND. UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY PLANETARY SCIENTIST

and interests in space,” MacKay said, adding it is “an essential component to our robust defence for Canada and North America, through NORAD.”

James Fergusson, director of the Centre for Defence and Security Studies at the University of Manitoba, says the strategic significance of Sapphire should not be underestimated.

He suggested in a recent report that Sapphire will enhance NORAD’s early warning system of ballistic missile attack on North America. The system needs to be able to “differentiate between objects that may be de-orbiting for a variety of reasons and ballistic missile warheads, thereby avoiding potential dangerous assessment errors,” Fergusson wrote in Vanguard, a forum for the security and defence community.

Sapphire and NEOSSat are secondary cargo on India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle carrying an IndoFrench Earth observation satellite.

One of the tiny nanosats also riding on the rocket was designed and assembled at the Space Flight Laboratory (SFL) of the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies. Its twin was also designed in Canada, but assembled in Austria.

They are the smallest space telescopes ever — just 20 centimetres across and less than seven kilograms each — and part of the BRITE Constellation being created by Austria, Poland and Canada to study the brightest stars. The constellation will have six nanosats in orbit when it’s complete in 2014.

A group at the Canadian Space Agency in Montreal hopes to pick up NEOSSat using an international network of ground stations within a few hours of launch, set for 7:25 a.m. Monday.