(ORDO NEWS) — The NEO Surveyor project received funding, the mission is scheduled to launch in 2028.
NEO Surveyor is a satellite specially designed to search for objects near the Earth.
One of its main goals will be to search for asteroids and other small bodies that have the potential to collide with the Earth, but are invisible to other missions due to their location in the solar system.
With the increased focus on planetary defense, NASA has been showing interest in the mission, which was originally proposed in 2005, for some time now.
But like all bureaucracies, NASA also has budgetary challenges.
The agency initially canceled the NEO Surveyor budget for fiscal years 2022 and 2023, forcing scientists and engineers to move on to other projects.
Now that NASA is back on the project, the cost has risen to $1.2 billion.
NEO Surveyor has received funding, and the mission is moving into the third part of NASA’s five-stage project cycle – building and testing flight equipment.
By the end of the current stage, all equipment should be ready for final assembly and testing.
There is still a long way to go before NEO Surveyor is in space and able to collect valuable data on near-Earth asteroids.
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