Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) Update
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Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) Update Lindley Johnson Program Executive / Planetary Defense Officer Science Mission Directorate NASA HQ June 30, 2016 Chelyabinsk Event – 15 February 2013 • Natural object entering Earth’s atmosphere – Large meteoroids = small asteroids – Interest in any larger than 1 meter in size • Entry velocity much higher than re-entering space debris • Characteristic ionization trail and detonation • Chelyabinsk Event largest and most documented in recent decades – 17-19 meters in size, energy release equal to approximately 440 kilotons at 23 km altitude February 15, 2013 1613 citizens injured ~$30 million damages 2 National Interest in Asteroid Hazard “Threats from Space: A Review of U.S. Government Efforts to Track and Mitigate Asteroids and Meteors, Part 1’’ Congressional Hearing by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology (19 March 2013), Congressman Lamar Smith post-Chelyabinsk event General William Shelton — (R-Texas) — Chairman of U.S. then-Chief of the U.S. Air Force House of Representatives Space Command Committee on Science, Space, and Technology “The Administration places a high priority on tracking asteroids and protecting our John Holdren, Director, Office of planet from them, as evidenced by the five-fold increase in the budget for NASA’s Science and Technology Policy, NEOO program since 2009. The United States has an effective program for discovering Science advisor to President larger NEOs, but we need to improve our capabilities for the identification and Barack Obama characterization of smaller NEOs.” Planetary Defense Coordination Office This new office was recently established at NASA HQ to coordinate planetary defense related activities across NASA, and coordinate both US interagency and international efforts and projects to address and plan response to the asteroid impact hazard. Planetary Defense Coordination Office Mission Statement: Lead national and international efforts to: • Detect any potential for significant impact of planet Earth by natural objects • Appraise the range of potential effects by any possible impact • Develop strategies to mitigate impact effects on human welfare 4 Planetary Defense Coordination Office Administrator Associate Administrator Associate Administrator, Science Mission Directorate Planetary Science Division Program Director Lead Program Executive Public Communications Planetary Defense Officer Policy Development NEO Observation Program Interagency and Mitigation Research Program Manager Emergency Response Program Officer(s) Program Scientist Program Officer(s) – SMPAG – Minor Planet Center/IAWN – Interagency coordination – ARM Gravity Tractor Demo – Center for NEO Studies @ JPL – Emergency Response planning – AIDA – Catalina Sky Survey – Interagency exercise – Short Warning Mitigation – Pan-STARRS – …….. – LINEAR/SST – IRTF – GSSR – NEOWISE – …….. Legacy Program (1998) NEO Observations Program Detection and tracking of natural objects – asteroids and comets – that approach within 28 million miles of Earth’s orbit US component to International Asteroid Warning Network Has provided 98% of new detections of NEOs since 1998 Began with NASA commitment to House Committee on Science in May 1998 to find at least 90% of 1 km and larger NEOs . That goal reached by end of 2010 NASA Authorization Act of 2005 increased scope of objectives: • Amended National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 (“NASA Charter”) to add: ‘‘The Congress declares that the general welfare and security of the United States require that the unique competence of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration be directed to detecting, tracking, cataloguing, and characterizing near-Earth asteroids and comets in order to provide warning and mitigation of the potential hazard of such near-Earth objects to the Earth.’’ • Made NEO detection, tracking and research 1 of 7 explicitly stated purposes of NASA! • Provided additional direction: “…plan, develop, and implement a Near-Earth Object Survey program to detect, track, catalogue, and characterize the physical characteristics of near-Earth objects equal to or greater than 140 meters in diameter in order to assess the threat of such near-Earth objects to the Earth. It shall be the goal of the Survey program to achieve 90 percent completion of its near-Earth object catalogue within 15 years [by 2020]” 6 Known Near Earth Asteroid Population As of 6/26/2016 14,474 Also 107 comets 1707 Potentially Hazardous Start of Asteroids NASA NEO Come within 5 “Program” million miles of Earth’s orbit 872 157 PHAs 7 Near Earth Asteroid Survey Status * *Harris & D’Abramo, “The population of near-Earth asteroids”, Icarus 257 (2015) 302–312, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2015.05.004 8 Near Earth Asteroid Survey Status Initial Objective Accomplished 9 Near Earth Asteroid Survey Status * Impact Devastation None City Region Continent Global 1908 Tunguska 2013 Chelyabinsk KT Impact Killed Dinosaurs *Study to Determine the Feasibility of Extending the Search for Near-Earth Objects to Smaller Limiting Diameters Report of the Near-Earth Object Science Definition Team, August 22, 2003, http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/neo/neoreport030825.pdf 10 Near Earth Asteroid Survey Status To meet Current Objectives > 1 km Objective Accomplished 11 Near Earth Asteroid Survey Status If Population >= 140 meters in estimated size is ~ 25,500 = 100% 12 NASA’s NEO Search Program (Current Survey Systems) Minor Planet Center (MPC) • IAU sanctioned NEO-WISE • Int’l observation database • Initial orbit determination http://minorplanetcenter.net/ Center for NEO Studies @ JPL • Program coordination JPL • Precision orbit determination Sun-synch LEO • Automated SENTRY http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/ Catalina Sky Pan-STARRS LINEAR/SST Survey UofAZ MIT/LL Uof HI Arizona & Australia 13 Soccoro, NM Haleakula, Maui Status of Minor Planet Center • With PSD support, PDCO has begun discussions to attach MPC as a functional node to the Planetary Data System Small Bodies Node (SBN) • Working with SBN and CfA to have MPC on better footing by 2017 • PSD requested and just received proposal from SBN for MPC support beginning FY2017 • Anticipated benefits: 1. Ensure the MPC’s critical output is directly tied with NASA’s permanent archive of planetary data. 2. Provide a closer tie, which can be enhanced by added links in the archive, between the dynamical results produced by MPC and the physical results normally archived by PDS. Both are critical for understanding the hazard from NEOs and the two, complementary data types are needed by many researchers 3. Provides support to permanently archive physical observations submitted to MPC 4. Provide greater flexibility to hire staff to support MPC functions 5. Increases international collaboration through PDS’s participation in IPDA and in other relevant IAU Working Groups 14 Growth in Capability As more capable telescopes are added, discoveries include more <140 meter NEOs 15 Discoveries for Current Objective Discoveries of >140 meter NEOs is now about 1/3 of the total each year 16 Update on Upgrades Catalina Sky Survey - Large-format camera upgrades for both survey telescopes. These camera upgrades will increase the field of view by a factor of 2.4x on the 0.7m Schmidt and 4.0x on the 1.5m. The latter was in operation for June 2016 and tripled the average monthly NEO discovery rate. Pan-STARRS – PS-1 continues NEO search operations for 90% of its time. PS-2 found 5 NEOs in Fall 2015 during commissioning, but is now completing upgrades to bring it to full operational status, including a new focal plane for its CCD camera. Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) - ATLAS-1 on Haleakala is now fully operational and routinely discovering new Near Earth Asteroids – 9 so far in 2015. It is still fitted with a corrector lens that has known optical problems, but a fix is in work. ATLAS-2 telescope to be delivered by August 2016 and installed in the Mauna Loa dome. http://www.fallingstar.com/updates.php 17 2016 HO3: A Quasi-moon for Earth On 27 April 2016, the Pan-STARRS 1 survey telescope on Haleakalā, detected a “quasi-moon” of the Earth. This companion, designated 2016 HO3, is probably a small asteroid between 40 to 100 meters in size. Although looking from the Earth it may appear to orbit the planet, it actually is in a co-orbit with Earth about the Sun. The Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS 1) on Maui. 6 Plot of the librating orbit of 2016 HO3 over 60 years (1960-2020) 50 x 10 km relative to the Earth, presented in a rotating frame centered on the Earth and projected onto the ecliptic plane. From this perspective, this near-Earth asteroid appears to orbit the Earth; however, it actually orbits the Sun on a path very close to the Earth’s. 2016 HO3 never approaches closer than 14 million km nor ventures further than 40 million km away. It takes the Earth 365.24 days to orbit the Sun. 2016 HO3 currently makes one circuit in 365.93 days (about 16 hours longer than Earth). In terms of ∆v [the energy “Red Spot, Jr.” required to launch and rendevous a spacecraft], 2016 HO3 might make an interesting target to visit, as it is accessible(Oval BA)every year at less than 7 km/sec despite a 7.7°inclination with the ecliptic. Planetary Defense Coordination Office Rapid Notification Process 19 NEOO Survey and Alert Process Survey, Publish/ Correlate, Determine Observations and Detect, Update Rough Orbit Update Orbit & Report Results Radar Alerts to PDCO No Possible • MPC - PHO New PHO? Resolve of