NASA ends support of asteroid-hunting Sentinel project

Nature : Sentinel is a satellite currently under development by the nonprofit B612 Foundation, which is led by former astronaut Ed Lu. It is designed to track near-Earth objects (NEOs)—asteroids that pass within 45 million km of Earth’s orbit. In 2012, NASA signed a deal with the foundation to provide nearly $30 million toward the satellite’s development. Last month, however, NASA ended its support following B612’s failure to meet technical deadlines and inability to raise sufficient additional funding. Tracking asteroids has been a priority for NASA since 2005, when Congress required the agency to find 90% of NEOs larger than 140 m by 2020. For comparison, the object that hit Earth in the devastating Tunguska event of 1908 was no more than 55 m. As of 2014, only 565 of the estimated 363 000 Tunguska-sized NEOs have been identified.