Asteroid Detection Results Using the Space Surveillance Telescope
Abstract
From 1998-2013, MIT Lincoln Laboratory operated a highly successful near-Earth asteroid search program using two 1-m optical telescopes located at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory Experimental Test Site (ETS) in Socorro, N.M. In 2014, the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) program successfully transitioned operations from the two 1-m telescopes to the 3.5-m Space Surveillance Telescope (SST) located at Atom Site on White Sands Missile Range, N.M. This paper provides a summary of first-year performance and results for the LINEAR program with SST and provides an update on recent improvements to the moving-object pipeline architecture that increase utility of SST data for NEO discovery and improve sensitivity to fast-moving objects. Ruprecht et al. (2014) made predictions for SST NEO search productivity as a function of population model. This paper assesses the NEO search performance of SST in the first 1.5 years of operation and compares results to model predictions.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 18, 2015
- Accession Number
- AD1001992
Entities
People
- Deborah F. Woods
- Grant Stokes
- Greg Ushomirsky
- Herbert E. Viggh
- Jacob Varey
- Jessica D. Ruprecht
- Mark E. Cornell
Organizations
- MIT Lincoln Laboratory