NASA has terminated its unfunded Space Act Agreement (SAA)

with the B612 Foundation. The Foundation is trying to raise private funds to

build a spacecraft, Sentinel, to hunt for asteroids. B612 says that

they are proceeding with their efforts uninterrupted despite the termination.

The B612 Foundation’s goal is to “enhance our capability to

protect Earth from asteroid impacts.” Its CEO, Ed Lu, and Chair

Emeritus, Rusty Schweickert, are both former astronauts and have focused

for many years on raising awareness of the threats posed to Earth by

asteroids and trying to find solutions to address that threat. One of

the challenges is finding out where the Earth-threatening asteroids are

and while NASA has ground-based programs to achieve that objective, B612

argues that only a spacecraft with infrared sensors in a

“Venus-trailing” orbit would have the field of view necessary to really

answer that question.

The B612 Foundation is named after the asteroid in the children’s story The Little Prince.

NASA is not currently planning to build a dedicated

asteroid-hunting

spacecraft, although it did re-purpose its earth-orbiting Wide-Field

Infrared Explorer (WISE) satellite to focus on asteroid detection in

2013. Launched in 2009, WISE was designed to image the entire sky in

the infrared band using super-cooled detectors. It completed its

primary mission in September 2010 after exhausting the coolant and was

decommissioned, but NASA later determined some of the

instruments could still be useful in searching for asteroids. Renamed

the Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, NEOWISE, it

began a three-year observation program in 2013. The Jet Propulsion

Laboratory (JPL) is proposing NEOCam, another asteroid-hunting mission,

as part of the the Discovery 14 selection process, though competition is

stiff and it is far from clear whether it will be chosen as one of

semi-finalists from among the 16 proposers, a decision expected

soon. It was also proposed in 2006 and 2010.

WISE/NEOWISE was built by Ball Aerospace, which is partnered with B612 on the Sentinel mission (and would also be the prime contractor for NEOCam if it is selected).

B612 is trying to fund the Sentinel mission privately, using mostly philanthropic donations although anyone may contribute.

The nonreimbursable NASA-B612 Foundation agreement was

signed by NASA Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and

Operations Bill Gerstenmaier and Associate Administrator for Science

John Grunsfeld on May 31, 2012. B612 CEO Ed Lu signed it on June 19,

2012 and was to be in effect for 10 years from that date. Its primary

purpose was obtaining NASA technical consulting and agreement for B612

to use NASA tracking facilities for Sentinel after it was launched. In

return, B612 would keep NASA informed of the spacecraft’s technical

characteristics and progress and deliver data from the spacecraft to the

Minor Planet Center.

The milestones identified in the agreement were:

Sentinel mission contract start date with Ball, November 2012

Preliminary design review, October 2013

Critical Design Review, October 2014

Launch, December 2016

NASA spokesmen Dwayne Brown and Dave Steitz confirmed via

email that NASA

terminated the agreement with B612. Steitz explained that B612 had not

met an important milestone in the SAA — starting Sentinel’s development

— and NASA therefore terminated the agreement because “due to limited

resources, NASA can no longer afford to reserve funds” to support the

project. “NASA believes it is in the best interest of both parties to

terminate this agreement but remains open to future opportunities to

collaborate with the B612 Foundation,” he added.

B612 Vice President for Communications Diane Murphy also

confirmed the termination, but said NASA had invited them to return to

obtain another SAA when Sentinel’s launch date is closer. She noted

that “our timeline is dependent on our fundraising — and while that is

going well – it is hard … and taking longer than we first

anticipated.” She provided a statement from Lu asserting that the

“status of the SAA in no way changes the resolve of the B612 Foundation

to move forward. … We will continue to work independently and together

with NASA, the US Congress and others to see our goals realized.”

UPDATE: An earlier version of this story said there would be three semi finalists in the Discovery selection, but there were five. They were announced on September 30. NEOCam is one of those five.