The NEO-VIS Asteroid Survey Mission
Abstract
We present a space-based concept to detect and track NEOs down to a size limit of 140-meters in several years of on-orbit operation. The mission, called NEO-VIS, is based upon a rebuild of the Kepler observatory consisting of a high-reliability deep-space spacecraft carrying a visible-light 0.95-meter aperture, f/1.4, wide-field Schmidt telescope. The NEO-VIS focal plane is a large-format panchromatic CCD array having a limiting sensitivity of Mv 23.6. NEO-VIS can be launched on a Delta-II-class booster and uses a single, passive, gravity-assisted fly-by of Venus to achieve its final operating orbit of 0.6AU by 0.8AU having an orbital period of 214 days. This ideal NEO finding location has continuous access to the anti-sun half of the full sky and enable NEO-VIS to perform its own follow-up observations. NEO-VIS can detect >90% of all 140-meter objects in heliocentric orbits out to 1.3AU having albedos greater than 10%. Depending on albedo and diameter, NEO-VIS will also detect objects closer to the Earth that are smaller ( 100-meters in diameter) and darker (albedos of 5%).
- Publication:
-
AAS/Division for Planetary Sciences Meeting Abstracts #38
- Pub Date:
- September 2006
- Bibcode:
- 2006DPS....38.4507R