NEO-MAPP

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NEO-MAPP (Near-Earth-Object Modelling and Payloads for Protection) [1] is a project for studying planetary defence and asteroid exploration.

Contents

This project is focused on two main topics, that are: on one side, maturation of existing digital modelisation capacities of various process governing asteroids evolution (impact, dynamic, structural evolution) and its adaptation to specific use cases, and, on the other side, development of instruments, technologies and data exploitation models linked to it, in order to support space missions towards near-Earth-objects. [2] [3]

Presentation

The Horizon 2020 NEO-MAPP Project logo Neomapp logo v6 B.png
The Horizon 2020 NEO-MAPP Project logo

The NEO-MAPP project, financed by the European Commission through its Horizon 2020 programme, is coordinated by the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and its coordinator Patrick Michel, from Lagrange Laboratory, who is also the Principal Investigator of ESA's Hera space mission, the reference mission of the project. [4] [5] [6]

The reference mission of the NEO-MAPP project is the Hera mission, currently under development under the Space Security programme at the European Space Agency (ESA), which will be launched on October, 2024 with aim to measure impact results of the NASA's DART mission on satellite Dimorphos, part of the double asteroid (65803) Didymos. [7]

Hera will also characterize the entire physical properties and composition of the double asteroid, including for the first time, internal properties. NEO-MAPP activities therefore accompany the Hera mission development, both in term of digital modellisation than in term of developing some instruments aboard the probe and analysis tools obtain by the mission. Most of the science team members of Hera mission are also members of NEO-MAPP. [8] [9] The main NEO-MAPP goal is to provide significant advances, both on understanding the response of asteroids to external forces (in particular to kinetic impact or to immediate approach of a planet), and in associated measures carried out by a space craft (including those necessary to physical and dynamical characterization in general).

Several communities are interested in asteroids for pour various reasons, from Science to planetary defence and even business objectives (for instance mining, resource extraction and exploitation). [10] Given the principle scientific and technological sharing, all these communities are seeking knowledge and means of asteroid property modelisations, as well as capacity to achieve operations at close proximity of a celestial small body and to obtain relevant measures. [11] Multidisciplinary approach at the heart of NEO-MAPP offers the possibility to accomplish significant advances on each of these aspects.

The most threatening asteroids with a trajectory crossing the Earth orbit – in terms of collisions frequency with Earth – are the smallest, the ones whose size is below 1 km. However, this is least humankind-known population, due to the fact that ground observations does not allow us to obtain measures of its physical properties at a required level of detail. [12]

Project Partners

The NEO-MAPP consortium consists of a grouping of European research institutes and of two space industries in Europe. Most of the consortium members have collaborated, under the auspices of the ESA, in exploration project of the solar system, have responsibilities within the science team of the Hera mission, and are involved in space missions towards small bodies of other pace agencies (for instance the NASA's or the JAXA's). Furthermore, some project partners were before that members of PF7 NEOShield and/or H2020 NEOShield-2 European programmes. [13] [14]

Here are the 15 partners of the project : [15]

The Horizon 2020 logo, the framework programme of the European Union. Horizon 2020 Logo.png
The Horizon 2020 logo, the framework programme of the European Union.

Members of partner institutes contributing to work modules with a scientific vocation are renowned experts in impact process, in dynamic evolution of NEOs, and in modelisation of their physical properties, including their internal structures. This consortium includes partners having an extensive experience in developing relevant technologies and space missions systems. Public outreach to all these activities is supervised by a partner whose experience and efficiency has been proven through the increasing success of Asteroid Day, which they organise every year since its creation in 2015. Some partnership are overlapping in terms of research field and in competences, which ensures a good and necessary synergy between the various work modules. [18]

Advisory board

The NEO-MAPP project is led by a seven member-advisory board.

Dr. Brian May (Queen band guitarist and co-founder of the Asteroid Day movement) assists the project on the outreach side toward general public by producing image pairs and stereoscopic films of the digital modelisations of the project, allowing them to be visualised in 3D. [19]

Ian Carnelli is the Hera mission manager at ESA, Dr. Michael Kueppers is the Hera mission ESA scientist, Dr. Aurélie Moussi is a small bodies mission CNES expert, Dr. Andy Cheng is one of the leader of NASA's DART mission at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physic Laboratory (APL), Dr. Paul Abell is a small bodies expert representing NASA and Pr. Makoto Yoshikawa is JAXA's Hayabusa2 mission manager. [20]

Results

Information on Project NEO-MAPP Project information.png
Information on Project NEO-MAPP

Results obtained by the project contribute to provide significant advances in our comprehension of NEOs while yielding profit and increasing progress in the expertise European scientists and engineers, both in terms of efforts dedicated to planetary defence and to small bodies exploration.

Therefore, project members participate in publishing of several articles in peer-reviewed journals among them Science, [21] Nature Astronomy, [22] Nature Communications, [23] Astronomy & Astrophysics [24] and Icarus. [25]

Public Outreach

The project has also given itself the objective to increase media coverage of scientific space research dedicated to planetary defence, public outreach (in particular among the youngest and science and engineering students) to impact risks and coverage of this global risk by the European scientific community, admittedly at low probability but factually at high consequence for Earth, by the combination of videos published on its website and by interventions in the medias. [26] [27]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Asteroid</span> Natural objects within Jupiters orbit

An asteroid is a minor planet—an object that is neither a planet nor a comet—that orbits within the inner Solar System. They are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Asteroid impact avoidance</span> Methods to prevent destructive asteroid hits

Asteroid impact avoidance comprises the methods by which near-Earth objects (NEO) on a potential collision course with Earth could be diverted away, preventing destructive impact events. An impact by a sufficiently large asteroid or other NEOs would cause, depending on its impact location, massive tsunamis or multiple firestorms, and an impact winter caused by the sunlight-blocking effect of large quantities of pulverized rock dust and other debris placed into the stratosphere. A collision 66 million years ago between the Earth and an object approximately 10 kilometres wide is thought to have produced the Chicxulub crater and triggered the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event that is understood by the scientific community to have caused the extinction of all non-avian dinosaurs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">B612 Foundation</span> Planetary defense nonprofit organization

The B612 Foundation is a private nonprofit foundation headquartered in Mill Valley, California, United States, dedicated to planetary science and planetary defense against asteroids and other near-Earth object (NEO) impacts. It is led mainly by scientists, former astronauts and engineers from the Institute for Advanced Study, Southwest Research Institute, Stanford University, NASA and the space industry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spacewatch</span> Astronomical survey that specializes in the study of minor planets

The Spacewatch Project is an astronomical survey that specializes in the study of minor planets, including various types of asteroids and comets at University of Arizona telescopes on Kitt Peak near Tucson, Arizona, in the United States. The Spacewatch Project has been active longer than any other similar currently active programs.

Don Quijote is a past space mission concept that has been studied from 2005 until 2007 by the European Space Agency, and which would investigate the effects of crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid to test whether a spacecraft could successfully deflect an asteroid on a collision course with Earth. The orbiter was designed to last for seven years. The mission did not proceed beyond initial studies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Active asteroid</span> Bodies orbiting within the main asteroid belt which have shown cometary activity

Active asteroids are small Solar System bodies that have asteroid-like orbits but show comet-like visual characteristics. That is, they show comae, tails, or other visual evidence of mass-loss, but their orbit remains within Jupiter's orbit. These bodies were originally designated main-belt comets (MBCs) in 2006 by astronomers David Jewitt and Henry Hsieh, but this name implies they are necessarily icy in composition like a comet and that they only exist within the main-belt, whereas the growing population of active asteroids shows that this is not always the case.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">65803 Didymos</span> Near-Earth asteroid

65803 Didymos is a sub-kilometer asteroid and binary system that is classified as a potentially hazardous asteroid and near-Earth object of the Apollo group. The asteroid was discovered in 1996 by the Spacewatch survey at Kitt Peak, and its small 160-meter minor-planet moon, named Dimorphos, was discovered in 2003. Due to its binary nature, the asteroid was then named Didymos, the Greek word for 'twin'.

3361 Orpheus is an Apollo asteroid that was discovered on 24 April 1982 by Carlos Torres at Cerro El Roble Astronomical Station. Its eccentric orbit crosses that of Mars and Earth, and approaches Venus as well. From 1900 to 2100 it passes closer than 30 Gm to Venus 11, Earth 33, and Mars 14 times. It passed by Earth at a distance of about 0.03 AU in 1937, 1978, 1982, and 2021 and will again in 2025.

The Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA) missions are a proposed pair of space probes which will study and demonstrate the kinetic effects of crashing an impactor spacecraft into an asteroid moon. The mission is intended to test and validate impact models of whether a spacecraft could successfully deflect an asteroid on a collision course with Earth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patrick Michel</span>

Patrick Michel is a French planetary scientist, Senior Researcher at CNRS, leader of the team TOP of the Lagrange Laboratory at the Côte d'Azur Observatory in Nice (France).

The Space Safety Programme, formerly the Space Situational Awareness (SSA) programme, is the European Space Agency's (ESA) initiative to monitor hazards from space, determine their risk, make this data available to the appropriate authorities and where possible, mitigate the threat.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Double Asteroid Redirection Test</span> 2021 NASA planetary defense mission

Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) was a NASA space mission aimed at testing a method of planetary defense against near-Earth objects (NEOs). It was designed to assess how much a spacecraft impact deflects an asteroid through its transfer of momentum when hitting the asteroid head-on. The selected target asteroid, Dimorphos, is a minor-planet moon of the asteroid Didymos; neither asteroid poses an impact threat to Earth. Launched from Earth on 24 November 2021, the DART spacecraft successfully collided with Dimorphos on 26 September 2022 at 23:14 UTC and shortened its orbit by 32 minutes, greatly in excess of the pre-defined success threshold of 73 seconds. DART's success in deflecting Dimorphos was due to the momentum transfer associated with the recoil of the ejected debris, which was substantially larger than that caused by the impact itself.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Planetary Missions Program Office</span> Division of NASA responsible for the Discovery, New Frontiers, and Solar System Exploration programs

The Planetary Missions Program Office is a division of NASA headquartered at the Marshall Space Flight Center, formed by the agency's Science Mission Directorate (SMD). Succeeding the Discovery and New Frontiers Program Office, it was established in 2014 to manage the Discovery and New Frontiers programs of low and medium-cost missions by third-party institutions, and the Solar System Exploration program of NASA-led missions that focus on prioritized planetary science objectives. The Discovery and New Frontiers programs were established in 1992 and 2001 respectively, and have launched fourteen primary missions together, along with two missions launched under the administration of the Planetary Missions Program Office. The Solar System Exploration Program was established alongside the office, with three missions planned for launch under the new program.

MANTIS is a mission concept that would flyby 14 asteroids covering a wide range of types and masses, and obtaining remote sensing and in-situ data. This mission would explore the diversity of asteroids to understand the Solar system's history, its present processes, and hazards. The concept was proposed in 2019 to NASA's Discovery Program to compete for funding and development.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dimorphos</span> Moon of asteroid Didymos

Dimorphos is a natural satellite or moon of the near-Earth asteroid 65803 Didymos, with which it forms a binary system. The moon was discovered on 20 November 2003 by Petr Pravec in collaboration with other astronomers worldwide. Dimorphos has a diameter of 177 meters (581 ft) across its longest extent and it was the target of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), a NASA space mission that deliberately collided a spacecraft with the moon on 26 September 2022 to alter its orbit around Didymos. Before the impact by DART, Dimorphos had a shape of an oblate spheroid with a surface covered in boulders but virtually no craters. The moon is thought to have formed when Didymos shed its mass due to its rapid rotation, which formed an orbiting ring of debris that conglomerated into a low-density rubble pile that became Dimorphos today.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LICIACube</span> ASI CubeSat aboard DART spacecraft

Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging of Asteroids is a six-unit CubeSat of the Italian Space Agency (ASI). LICIACube is a part of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission and carries out observational analysis of the Didymos asteroid binary system after DART's impact on Dimorphos. It communicates directly with Earth, sending back images of the ejecta and plume of DART's impact as well as having done asteroidal study during its flyby of the Didymos system from a distance of 56.7 km (35.2 mi), 165 seconds after DART's impact. LICIACube is the first purely Italian autonomous spacecraft in deep space. Data archiving and processing is managed by the Space Science Data Center (SSDC) of the ASI.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephan Ulamec</span> Austrian geophysicist

Stephan Ulamec is an Austrian geophysicist, born in Salzburg on January 27th, 1966, with more than 100 articles in peer-reviewed journals and several participations in space missions and payloads operated by diverse space agencies. He is working at the German Aerospace Center in Cologne. He is regularly giving lectures about his publications in aerospace engineering at the University of Applied Sciences: Fachhochschule FH-Aachen. Main aspects of his work are related to the exploration of small bodies in the solar system.

<i>Hera</i> (space mission) ESA spacecraft which will study the effects of the DART Impactor on the asteroid moon Dimorphos

Hera is a space mission in development at the European Space Agency in its Space Safety program. Its primary objective is to study the Didymos binary asteroid system that was impacted by DART and contribute to validation of the kinetic impact method to deviate a near-Earth asteroid in a colliding trajectory with Earth. It will measure the size and the morphology of the crater created by and momentum transferred by an artificial projectile impacting an asteroid, which will allow measuring the efficiency of the deflection produced by the impact.

References

  1. ↑ "Asteroid Day Live". NEO MAPP. Retrieved 2022-02-25.
  2. ↑ "Abstract". NEO MAPP. Retrieved 2022-02-25.
  3. ↑ "The European Commission funded NEO-MAPP project in support of the ESA Hera mission: Near-Earth Object Modelling And Payload for Protection".
  4. ↑ "Avancées technologiques pour la défense planétaire".
  5. ↑ Levakis, Olympe. "H2020 Projects". Université Côte d'Azur. Retrieved 2022-02-25.
  6. ↑ "Comment dévier un astéroïde tueur ?". CNRS Le journal (in French). Retrieved 2022-02-25.
  7. ↑ "Facts and figures". www.esa.int. Retrieved 2022-02-25.
  8. ↑ "Team". NEO MAPP. Retrieved 2022-02-25.
  9. ↑ "HERA Mission Team". Hera Mission. Retrieved 2022-02-25.
  10. ↑ "Exploiter les minerais des astéroïdes". LEFIGARO (in French). 2013-02-15. Retrieved 2022-02-25.
  11. ↑ Decourt, Rémy. "Le Luxembourg en route vers l'exploitation minière des astéroïdes". Futura (in French). Retrieved 2022-02-28.
  12. ↑ @NatGeoFrance (2021-10-25). "Cet astéroïde est l'un des plus susceptibles de frapper la Terre". National Geographic (in French). Retrieved 2022-02-25.
  13. ↑ "NEOShield: A Global Approach to Near-Earth Object Impact Threat Mitigation" (PDF).
  14. ↑ "NEOShield-2". Asteroid Day. Retrieved 2022-02-28.
  15. ↑ "Partners". NEO MAPP. Retrieved 2022-02-28.
  16. ↑ "NEO-MAPP - Mednight" . Retrieved 2022-02-28.
  17. ↑ "Research Projects - Horizon 2020 - University of Bologna". www.unibo.it. Retrieved 2022-02-28.
  18. ↑ "Consortium". NEO MAPP. Retrieved 2022-02-28.
  19. ↑ Imagerie stéréoscopique des astéroïdes avec Brian May , retrieved 2022-02-28
  20. ↑ "Advisory Board". NEO MAPP. Retrieved 2022-02-28.
  21. ↑ Morota, T.; Sugita, S.; Cho, Y.; Kanamaru, M.; Tatsumi, E.; Sakatani, N.; Honda, R.; Hirata, N.; Kikuchi, H.; Yamada, M.; Yokota, Y. (2020-05-08). "Sample collection from asteroid (162173) Ryugu by Hayabusa2: Implications for surface evolution". Science. 368 (6491): 654–659. Bibcode:2020Sci...368..654M. doi:10.1126/science.aaz6306. PMID   32381723. S2CID   218552037.
  22. ↑ Cheng, Bin; Yu, Yang; Asphaug, Erik; Michel, Patrick; Richardson, Derek C.; Hirabayashi, Masatoshi; Yoshikawa, Makoto; Baoyin, Hexi (February 2021). "Reconstructing the formation history of top-shaped asteroids from the surface boulder distribution". Nature Astronomy. 5 (2): 134–138. Bibcode:2021NatAs...5..134C. doi:10.1038/s41550-020-01226-7. ISSN   2397-3366. S2CID   228970821.
  23. ↑ Michel, P.; Ballouz, R.-L.; Barnouin, O. S.; Jutzi, M.; Walsh, K. J.; May, B. H.; Manzoni, C.; Richardson, D. C.; Schwartz, S. R.; Sugita, S.; Watanabe, S. (2020-05-27). "Collisional formation of top-shaped asteroids and implications for the origins of Ryugu and Bennu". Nature Communications. 11 (1): 2655. Bibcode:2020NatCo..11.2655M. doi:10.1038/s41467-020-16433-z. ISSN   2041-1723. PMC   7253434 . PMID   32461569. S2CID   218898879.
  24. ↑ Michel, P.; Ballouz, R.-L.; Barnouin, O. S.; Jutzi, M.; Walsh, K. J.; May, B. H.; Manzoni, C.; Richardson, D. C.; Schwartz, S. R.; Sugita, S.; Watanabe, S. (2020-05-27). "Collisional formation of top-shaped asteroids and implications for the origins of Ryugu and Bennu". Nature Communications. 11 (1): 2655. Bibcode:2020NatCo..11.2655M. doi:10.1038/s41467-020-16433-z. ISSN   2041-1723. PMC   7253434 . PMID   32461569. S2CID   218898879.
  25. ↑ Zhang, Yun; Michel, Patrick; Richardson, Derek C.; Barnouin, Olivier S.; Agrusa, Harrison F.; Tsiganis, Kleomenis; Manzoni, Claudia; May, Brian H. (2021-07-01). "Creep stability of the DART/Hera mission target 65803 Didymos: II. The role of cohesion". Icarus. 362: 114433. Bibcode:2021Icar..36214433Z. doi: 10.1016/j.icarus.2021.114433 . ISSN   0019-1035. S2CID   233701042.
  26. ↑ Planetary Defense Missions on Asteroid Day LIVE 2019 , retrieved 2022-02-28
  27. ↑ Protecting Earth from Asteroids Panel Discussion , retrieved 2022-02-28

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