Canada Starts Near-Earth Space Surveillance With Mini Space Telescope

The successful launch of the Indian Polar Space Launch Vehicle (PSLV) today also marks the beginning of a Canadian asteroid monitoring mission. Four nano-satellites, either owned by or developed in Canada, accompanied the larger satellite launched from India and among them was the small space telescope called Near-Earth Object Surveillance Satellite (NEOSSat).

It will be the first space telescope dedicated fully to only search for Near-Earth Objects in the inner solar system, and will be the principal instrument of the Near Earth Surveillance System (NESS) operating it. It's advantage is that unlike ground-based telescopes, it can operate 24/7 and won't be limited by the day-night cycle. It will capture hundreds of images per day for analysis by researchers on a team including Alan Hildebrand at the University of Calgary.

They will use NEOSSat to discover new near-Earth asteroids by searching the sky along the ecliptic plane as close to the Sun as its microsatellite custom baffle design allows (to within 45° of the Sun). This search will focus on two groups of asteroids; one called Atens (asteroids with orbits mostly within the Earth`s (although they cross Earth’s orbit at their farthest points from the Sun) and, in particular, Atiras (asteroids whose entire orbit is within Earth’s).

The microsatellite is the size of a suitcase, although overweight when you would try to check it in at an airport (~0.9 x 0.65 x 0.35 m body with a telescope baffle protruding ~0.5 m; mass ~74 kg) and is powered by multi-band gap solar panels and stabilised/slewed by a system of miniature reaction wheels.

NEOSSat was launched into orbit 800 kilometers above the Earth on the PSLV-C20 launcher, which is powered by four stages using solid and liquid propulsion systems alternately--with the first stage one of the largest solid boosters in the world carrying 139 tonnes of propellant.