Raytheon and the National Science Foundation Radio Astronomy Facilities to Detect Dusty Asteroids in Space
March 4, 2020 | Raytheon CompanyEstimated reading time: 1 minute
Raytheon Company, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and the Green Bank Observatory entered a cooperative research and development agreement to detect and characterize near-earth asteroids large enough to cause significant damage.
The Raytheon-NRAO/GBO collaboration will integrate a radar transmitter into the Green Bank Telescope and use the National Science Foundation's Very Long Baseline Array as a receiver to provide a very detailed radar image. The GBT and the VLBA will each point at the same celestial body, such as the moon, to conduct radar experiments. This approach increases the probability of detection and characterization of objects out to the orbit of Jupiter and possibly farther. To put this in perspective, objects around Mars are hard to detect, and Jupiter is hundreds of millions of miles farther than that.
"Very energetic dusty asteroids—we're talking from several hundred feet to miles in size—don't reflect sunlight very well, and that makes them incredibly difficult, if not impossible to detect in our solar system," said Art Morrish, vice president, Raytheon Advanced Concepts & Technologies. "We're collaborating with the NRAO to combine radio astronomy and radar techniques to bring new capabilities to the astronomical community to solve problems like this."
"Using the radio astronomy facilities of the National Science Foundation in these new research areas is incredibly exciting," said Tony Beasley, director of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and Associated Universities Inc. vice president for Radio Astronomy Operations. "This partnership between Raytheon and NRAO/GBO is one of several promising research and technology collaborations we're exploring that may greatly benefit our next-generation Very Large Array project."
The NRAO and the GBO are facilities of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.
Suggested Items
Intel Takes Next Step Toward Building Scalable Silicon-Based Quantum Processors
05/02/2024 | BUSINESS WIRENature published an Intel research paper, “Probing single electrons across 300-mm spin qubit wafers,” demonstrating state-of-the-art uniformity, fidelity and measurement statistics of spin qubits.
Argonne, Toyota Collaborate on Cutting-Edge Battery Recycling Process
05/01/2024 | BUSINESS WIREThe U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory has recently launched a collaboration with Toyota Motor North America that could reduce the nation’s reliance on foreign sources of battery materials.
Chinese Smartphone Market Maintains its Recovery Momentum at 6.5% Growth in 1Q24,
04/26/2024 | IDCAccording to preliminary data from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, China smartphone shipments grew 6.5% year over year (YoY) to 69.3 million units in 1Q24.
Boeing Opens Research & Technology Center in Japan
04/23/2024 | BoeingBoeing today opened a Boeing Research & Technology (BR&T) Center in Japan that will focus on innovation to enable the commercial aviation industry meet its goal of net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Gartner Forecasts Worldwide IT Spending to Grow 8% in 2024
04/17/2024 | Gartner, Inc.Worldwide IT spending is expected to total $5.06 trillion in 2024, an increase of 8% from 2023, according to the latest forecast by Gartner, Inc. This is an increase from the previous quarter’s forecast of 6.8% growth and puts worldwide IT spending on track to surpass $8 trillion well before the end of the decade.