NEO-MAPP PI Patrick Michel addresses Europlanet Science Congress 2020

NEO-MAPP PI Patrick Michel addresses Europlanet Science Congress 2020

NEO-MAPP PI Patrick Michel addresses Europlanet Science Congress 2020 480 270 NEO MAPP

NEO-MAPP PI Patrick Michel speaks to the virtual Europlanet Science Congress 2020.

Attendees of the virtual Europlanet Science Congress 2020 were recently briefed on the Near Earth Object Modelling and Payloads for Protection (NEO-MAPP) project by Principal Investigator Patrick Michel, Director of Research at CNRS at the Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur in Nice, France. 

The project’s objectives, include:

(1) Maturing European modelling capabilities linked to planetary defence and NEO exploration.

(2) Increasing the maturity of multiple spaceborn and in-situ European instruments directly related to planetary defence, while focusing on measurements of surface, shallow sub-surface and interior properties of NEOs.

(3) Developing algorithms and simulators to prepare for close-proximity operations, and payload data analyses and exploitation.

(4) Developing innovative, synergistic measurement and data-analysis strategies that combine multiple payloads measurement to ensure optimal data exploitation for NEO missions.

(5) Developing and validating robust Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC) strategies and technologies to enable surface interaction and direct response measurements performed by CubeSat or small/micro-lander architectures.

NEO-MAPP will build on the expertise of its participants, who are directly involved in the Hera mission and other relevant missions such as NASA’s OSIRIS-REx, and JAXA’s Hayabusa2 and Martian Moons eXploration (MMX).  This ideally places the consortium to further advance NEO scientific research and payload technologies. The work of the group will enable significant advances in our understanding of NEOs while simultaneously increasing the expertise of European scientists and engineers in both planetary defence efforts and small-body exploration.

You can read the abstract here and watch the presentation by clicking the video link next to the title: “EPSC2020-103 The European Commission funded NEO-MAPP project in support of the ESA Hera mission: Near-Earth Object Modelling And Payload for Protection” on this webpage.