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The design and objectives of the B612 Foundation's privately-funded asteroid-hunting space telescope are technically sound, according to an independent panel of industry and NASA experts commissioned to advise the project.
Based in Mountain View, Calif., the B612 Foundation aims to launch the Sentinel Space Telescope in 2017 to discover up to 500,000 near-Earth asteroids and map their trajectories.
Established in 2002, the foundation's ultimate goal is to open the frontier of space exploration and protect humanity from asteroid impacts.
The foundation says the Sentinel Space Telescope is the first step, and officials unveiled the project in June.
On Thursday, the group announced the formation and initial findings of an independent advisory board consisting of experienced managers from NASA and industry.
The committee concluded the Sentinel mission design was technically sound, and the observatory will have a viable detection method for finding and tracking near-Earth asteroids, according to the B612 Foundation.
"Because the ultimate success of the Sentinel mission in finding and tracking threatening asteroids is so crucial to humanity, the B612 Foundation felt it was necessary to assemble one of the most experienced spacecraft technical teams on Earth to help it in its mission," said Ed Lu, former NASA astronaut and B612's chairman and CEO. "They will provide the B612 Sentinel team with the best possible unbiased critical evaluation of our plans, as well as ongoing technical advice"
NASA and the B612 Foundation signed a Space Act Agreement in June, in which the space agency will provide technical advice to the Sentinel project, while B612 will supply development and observation data to NASA.
NASA also agreed to provide navigation, data processing, and tracking and communications support to the Sentinel mission, which is estimated to cost several hundred million dollars.
"This is a major milestone in the development of Sentinel, and has validated the enormous amount of design and planning work that has already been carried out by Ball Aerospace," said Tom Gavin, chairman of the 11-person Sentinel review team.
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Based in Mountain View, Calif., the B612 Foundation aims to launch the Sentinel Space Telescope in 2017 to discover up to 500,000 near-Earth asteroids and map their trajectories.
Established in 2002, the foundation's ultimate goal is to open the frontier of space exploration and protect humanity from asteroid impacts.
The foundation says the Sentinel Space Telescope is the first step, and officials unveiled the project in June.
On Thursday, the group announced the formation and initial findings of an independent advisory board consisting of experienced managers from NASA and industry.
The committee concluded the Sentinel mission design was technically sound, and the observatory will have a viable detection method for finding and tracking near-Earth asteroids, according to the B612 Foundation.
"Because the ultimate success of the Sentinel mission in finding and tracking threatening asteroids is so crucial to humanity, the B612 Foundation felt it was necessary to assemble one of the most experienced spacecraft technical teams on Earth to help it in its mission," said Ed Lu, former NASA astronaut and B612's chairman and CEO. "They will provide the B612 Sentinel team with the best possible unbiased critical evaluation of our plans, as well as ongoing technical advice"
NASA and the B612 Foundation signed a Space Act Agreement in June, in which the space agency will provide technical advice to the Sentinel project, while B612 will supply development and observation data to NASA.
NASA also agreed to provide navigation, data processing, and tracking and communications support to the Sentinel mission, which is estimated to cost several hundred million dollars.
"This is a major milestone in the development of Sentinel, and has validated the enormous amount of design and planning work that has already been carried out by Ball Aerospace," said Tom Gavin, chairman of the 11-person Sentinel review team.
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