“This campaign was an excellent test of a real threat case. I learned that in many cases we are already well-prepared; communication and the openness of the community was fantastic,” said Detlef Koschny, co-manager of the near-Earth object (NEO) segment in the European Space Agency (ESA)’s Space Situational Awareness program. “I personally was not prepared enough for the high response from the public and media — I was positively surprised by that! It shows that what we are doing is relevant.”
International Asteroid Tracking Exercise Completed
An international team of astronomers led by NASA scientists successfully completed the first global exercise using a real asteroid to test global response capabilities.
