NASA has chosen SpaceX, based in Starbase, Texas, to deliver launch services for its Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor mission. This important initiative aims to identify and monitor asteroids and comets that may threaten to collide with Earth.

This fixed-price launch service task order is part of NASA’s indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity Launch Services II contract. The projected cost for this launch service is around $100 million, which encompasses the launch itself and other associated mission expenses. The NEO Surveyor mission is expected to launch no earlier than September 2027, utilizing a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Florida.

The NEO Surveyor mission will feature a single advanced scientific instrument: a nearly 20-inch (50-centimeter) telescope designed to function in two heat-sensing infrared wavelengths. This powerful telescope is capable of detecting both bright and elusive dark asteroids, which are typically challenging to find with current technologies. The mission is crucial for enhancing NASA’s planetary defense strategies by discovering and characterizing a significant number of potentially hazardous asteroids and comets that come within 30 million miles of Earth’s orbit, collectively referred to as near-Earth objects (NEOs).

The mission is set to conduct a baseline survey over five years, aiming to locate at least two-thirds of the unknown NEOs that are larger than 140 meters (460 feet). These sizable objects have the potential to cause substantial regional damage if they were to impact Earth. Utilizing two heat-sensitive infrared imaging channels, the telescope can also provide enhanced accuracy in measuring NEO sizes while gathering critical data on their compositions, shapes, rotation states, and orbits.

The initiative is managed by NASA’s Planetary Science Division under the Science Mission Directorate based at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Oversight will be provided by NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office, established in 2016 to oversee the agency’s planetary defense efforts. The project management for NEO Surveyor is handled by NASA’s Planetary Missions Program Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, while development is being led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory located in Southern California.

A variety of aerospace and engineering companies, such as BAE Systems SMS (Space & Mission Systems), Space Dynamics Laboratory, and Teledyne, have been contracted to construct the spacecraft and its instrumentation. The University of Colorado, Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics will support mission operations, while the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena will manage the processing of survey data and creation of mission data products. Caltech oversees JPL on behalf of NASA, with leadership provided by the University of California, Los Angeles. The management of the launch service falls under NASA’s Launch Services Program based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

For further information about the NEO Surveyor mission, please visit:

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/neo-surveyor/

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Tiernan Doyle / Joshua Finch
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600 / 202-358-1100
tiernan.doyle@nasa.gov / joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov

Patti Bielling
Kennedy Space Center, Florida
321-501-7575
patricia.a.bielling@nasa.gov