Canada set to launch eye in the sky
Tiny satellite will hunt comets, asteroids, seek ones to explore
Canada will launch a satellite Monday morning to look for asteroids and comets that cross Earth’s orbit, hoping to avoid nasty surprises like the one that blew up over Russia.
But it has a second reason to find asteroids close to Earth. Humans want to explore some of them.
Scheduled for launch on a rocket in India, the NEOSSat satellite is the size and shape of a large suitcase, with a tube-shape telescope sticking out one end.
From an orbit nearly 800 kilometres up, twice as high as the International Space Station, it will scan for flying chunks of rock (asteroids), comets and also space junk — leftovers from old space missions that can cause collisions.
And NEOSSat will see what telescopes on the ground can’t. It can “look” at the sky 24 hours a day, detecting asteroids that are hard to find because they give off very little light.
NEOSSat will greatly enhance the study of asteroids and comets as they approach Earth, according to Alan Hildebrand of the University of Calgary. “NEOSSat will discover many asteroids much faster than can be done from the ground alone,” he said. “Its most exciting result, however, will probably be discovering new targets for exploration by both manned and unmanned space missions.”
Some asteroids whiz past very quickly, but others follow a path and speed similar to Earth’s.
Space agencies around the world have often wondered about landing on an asteroid and exploring it. A Japanese probe called Hayabusa already touched down briefly in 2005 and returned to Earth with small asteroid samples..
“By looking along Earth’s orbit, NEOSSat will find ‘ low and slow’ asteroids before they pass by our planet and sprint missions could be launched to explore them when they are in the vicinity of the Earth,” Hildebrand said.
NEOSSat is jointly funded by the Canadian Space Agency and Defence Research and Development Canada. The satellite is built by Microsat Systems Canada Inc., with support from Spectral Applied Research and COM DEV.
Launch is set for 7:25 a.m. Monday, Ottawa time.
The satellite is classed as a microsatellite and weighs 65 kilograms. The name stands for Near Earth Object Surveillance Satellite.