The Near Earth Object Surveillance Satellite (Neossat)

Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) are collaborating to place a microsatellite in low earth orbit to perform optical detection and tracking of both inner-earth orbiting asteroids and earth-orbiting satellites and debris (i.e., "Resident Space Objects", RSOs). The "Near Earth Object Surveillance Satellite (NEOSSat)" will be the first mission for the CSA multi-mission microsatellite bus program, and is intended by DRDC to demonstrate the military utility of this small and inexpensive class of spacecraft. The mission will obtain metric positions, for geosynchronous satellites, to within +/-500 m, timestamps accurate to within a millisecond, and be sensitive to objects in geosynchronous orbit down to 14(th) magnitude. The asteroid tracking mission will repeatedly survey the area from +/-45-70degrees solar elongation with the aim of finding >50% of all inner-earth asteroids having diameters greater than 1 km.