NASA's NEO Surveyor to Launch Post-Design Reviews

NASA is ramping up efforts to track potentially dangerous asteroids with its Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor, a $1.4 billion infrared telescope under construction at its Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Aimed at identifying asteroids and comets that could threaten Earth, the NEO Surveyor is part of a broader mission to catalog 90% of near-Earth objects larger than 459 feet, as mandated by Congress. This initiative is critical given that an asteroid as small as 450 feet could devastate a city, although these are considerably smaller than the one that caused the extinction of dinosaurs 66 million years ago. Astronomers have already identified about 2,500 such asteroids, but models suggest there could be as many as 25,000 in our solar system. The James Webb Space Telescope will also conduct observations of asteroid 2024 YR4 in May, highlighting the ongoing efforts to understand and potentially mitigate asteroid threats. The NEO Surveyor is expected to launch no earlier than September 2027, following successful design reviews that confirmed the mission's technical viability.