NASA Cancels B612 Sentinel Agreement and Then Picks JPL NEOCam

NASA Selects Investigations for Future Key Planetary Mission

"NASA has selected five science investigations for refinement during the next year as a first step in choosing one or two missions for flight opportunities as early as 2020. The submitted proposals would study Venus, near-Earth objects and a variety of asteroids. Each investigation team will receive $3 million to conduct concept design studies and analyses."

Venus and a bizarre metal asteroid are leading destinations for low-cost NASA missions, Science

"NEOCam competed in the last round of Discovery, but it had some competition from outside NASA: the B612 foundation. The nonprofit organization, dedicated to finding hazardous asteroids, said it would raise private money to build its own space telescope, Sentinel. But B612 has struggled to meet its fundraising goals and scheduled objectives, and, earlier this week, it was reported that NASA had ended a cooperative agreement with B612. Hap McSween, a planetary scientist at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, says NEOCam's selection is not unrelated to the end of the B612 agreement. "The choice of NEOCam here is perhaps a reflection of harsh reality," McSween says. "If this is going to happen, NASA is going to have to pay for it."

Keith's note: Isn't it a litte odd that the decision to cancel the Space Act Agreement with B612 for its "Sentinel" asteroid hunting mission suddenly came to light on the eve of Discovery mission finalists being announced -- and that JPL's asteroid hunting "NEOCam" mission is among those selected for further work?. These spacecraft even look a lot alike. JPL folks clearly saw Sentinel as competition - even if it was Sentinel team that first pushed the envelope on this whole idea. JPLers were pushing Lindley Johnson and others at NASA HQ to end the Sentinel agreement. At this point Johnson could use all the help he can get given how miserably his organization's NEO work has been progressing.

NASA OIG Report: NASA's Efforts to Identify Near-Earth Objects and Mitigate Hazards (2014)

"The NASA Authorization Act of 2005 required the Agency to implement a "program to detect, track, catalogue, and characterize the physical characteristics of near-Earth objects equal to or greater than 140 meters in diameter" and established a goal of cataloging 90 percent of these objects by 2020. However, even with a ten-fold increase in the NEO Program budget in the past 5 years - from $4 million in fiscal year (FY) 2009 to $40 million in FY 2014 - NASA estimates that it has identified only about 10 percent of all asteroids 140 meters and larger. Moreover, given its current pace and resources, the Agency has stated that it will not meet the goal of identifying 90 percent of such objects by 2020."

NASA Cancels Space Act Agreement With B612 Foundation, earlier post