LOGAN, UTAH – The NEO Surveyor spacecraft arrived at the Space Dynamics Laboratory (SDL) in May 2025, marking a major milestone in its development. The instrument and enclosure will undergo crucial integration and testing of its instruments and key components at SDL’s state-of-the-art facility.

The instrument enclosure will house the observatory’s scientific instrument, which includes a three-reflection aluminum telescope, state-of-the-art infrared detectors, and an innovative passive cooling system to keep the instrument at cryogenic temperatures.

The telescope, which has an aperture of nearly 20 inches (50 centimeters), features detectors sensitive to two infrared wavelengths in which near-Earth objects re-radiate solar heat. The instrument enclosure is designed to ensure heat produced by the spacecraft and instrument during operations doesn’t interfere with its infrared observations.

As NASA’s first space-based detection mission specifically designed for planetary defense, NEO Surveyor will seek out, measure, and characterize the hardest-to-find asteroids and comets that might pose a hazard to Earth. While many near-Earth objects don’t reflect much visible light, they glow brightly in infrared light due to heating by the Sun.

Targeting launch in late 2027, the NEO Surveyor mission is led by Professor Amy Mainzer at UCLA for NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office and is being managed by JPL for the Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. BAE Systems, SDL, and are among the companies that were contracted to build the spacecraft and its instrumentation. The Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder will support operations, and IPAC at Caltech in Pasadena, California, is responsible for producing some of the mission’s data products. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

Image Credit:
Space Dynamics Laboratory/Allison Bills