2019 Annual Progress Report | B612 Asteroid Institute

ASTEROID INSTITUTE A PROGRAM OF B612

ANNUAL PROGRESS REPORT

2019

WE HAVE A NEW LOOK! Launched in 2017, the Asteroid Institute is a program of B612 and is designed to be the international center of excellence for scientific collaboration on the discovery and deflection of asteroids as well as an incubator for new technologies. This report outlines progress on science and research within the Asteroid Institute and other public education programs at B612.

Cover: Clouds at sunset, by Ed Lu from the ISS This page: An atoll in the South Pacific, by Ed Lu from the ISS

LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT This year we celebrated several important anniversaries. First,

In addition to our public education programs, Dr. Sarah Greenstreet, Senior Researcher

in March, the world came together to celebrate the 50th

at the Asteroid Institute, completed her research paper entitled “Required Deflection

anniversary of the Apollo missions. B612 co-founder Rusty

Impulses as a Function of Time Before Impact for Earth-Impacting Asteroids,” which

Schweickart’s Apollo 9 mission in March of 1969 was critical

should be published in late 2019 or early 2020. This paper describes her research using

for the success of the subsequent July 1969 Apollo 11 moon

the Asteroid Decision Analysis and Mapping (ADAM) platform. You can read more about

landing. His Apollo experience ultimately gave birth to a

what we learned from Sarah’s research on page 10. As ADAM’s capabilities are growing,

commitment to this planet. His visionary thinking has helped

we continue to focus our fundraising around the project. This year, we launched a funding

shape our organization and has allowed both B612 and Asteroid Day to grow and evolve.

campaign to secure multi-year support for several dedicated full-time technical team

You can read more about Rusty’s perspective on page 18 of this report.

members to continue to build and expand ADAM. And we continue to support other

Perhaps one of the things I am most excited to see is the growth of capability in the field we occupy. Last summer with asteroid 2018 LA, we saw our planet’s asteroid tracking and early warning system work together. Because of new alert systems in place, astronomers

science and technology programs such as the LSST Solar System Science Collaboration, University of Washington DIRAC Institute, and the San Diego Air & Space Museum through our grantmaking activities.

were able to assess the object shortly after discovery and determine its trajectory (it

In addition to our growing programs, we also welcomed Lawrence Wilkinson as a new

exploded over Botswana). However, this summer, another asteroid, asteroid 2019 OK,

board member. Lawrence has served on the boards of Oxygen Media, Common Sense

whizzed past Earth, having been detected only earlier that week, which surprised all of

Media, Wired Ventures, Pacific News Service, and The Institute for the Future, among

us as to its size and close proximity to our home planet. While our systems are improving,

others. He is an avid lover of all kinds of maps.

we still see an imperative for an increase in discovery rates. This will be possible only through increases in funding for technologies to find and track asteroids.

This year, on June 30th, we celebrated the 5th anniversary of Asteroid Day. B612 is a founding sponsor of Asteroid Day, whose primary goal is to inspire the world’s citizens

We hope you enjoy reading about our progress and what’s possible when we work together to build shared understanding, computation tools, and partnerships.

Looking ahead,

to learn more about asteroids—their role in the formation of our solar system, how we can use their resources, how asteroids can pave the way for future exploration, and, finally, how we can protect our planet from asteroid impacts.

Since its founding in 2014, Asteroid Day has quickly grown into a global movement and is now recognized by the United Nations as “the international day of awareness and education about asteroids.” Asteroid Day, combined with B612’s other education

Danica Remy President, B612 Foundation Co-Founder, Asteroid Day

and advocacy efforts, has contributed to a strong shift in public pressure and discourse around planetary defense.

4

LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT

LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT

5

ABOUT US

IN THE LAST YEAR

B612 is dedicated to protecting Earth from asteroid impacts. We do this through:

Research Presented at the National Academy of Sciences

ASTEROID INSTITUTE

Driving forward science and technologies needed to protect Earth from asteroid impacts through the Asteroid Institute.

Harold Reitsema, our Mission Director at the Asteroid Institute, presented at the National Academy of Sciences on the work B612 has done on space-based asteroid observation missions. Dr. Reitsema presented B612’s research on what a constellation of satellites could achieve as well as the knowledge learned during the planning stages

ASTEROID

EDUCATION

Educating the public, the scientific community, and world

of the now-canceled Sentinel Mission.

governments about asteroids through programs such as Asteroid Day.

Research Presented at the Planetary

Since the organization’s inception in 2002, our work has been carried out entirely

Defense Conference The findings of the Asteroid Institute’s Dr. Sarah

through the support of private donors.

presented at the Planetary Defense Conference in College

R ight on the heels of the love relationship we have with Earth is a responsibility.

Park, Maryland. The work was expanded into a paper for

RUSTY SCHWEICKART

Greenstreet’s research, “The Effect of Warning Time on the Deflection of Earth-Impacting Asteroids,” was

What started in 2002 as a visionary idea to develop the technology to deflect an asteroid has grown into a world-renowned organization and scientific

publication in a scientific journal, which is expected to be

institute with a key role in the emerging field of planetary defense. For

published in late 2019 or early 2020.

years, B612, our partners, and a global community of dedicated scientists and researchers have advocated for increased asteroid detection, and many victories have resulted from those efforts. Asteroid detection is now debated seriously in scientific, governmental, and public conversations.

B612 Sponsors the LSST Solar System Readiness Sprint For the second consecutive year, B612 sponsored the LSST Solar System Readiness Sprint, a convening of scientists ensuring the readiness of the scientific community to interpret LSST’s solar system data when it begins operation. One of the largest telescopes on Earth, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), will come online in 2022. It is expected to catalog millions of asteroids, including over 100,000 near-Earth objects. In order to be ready for this data, the scientific community is collaborating, collecting resources, and building analytical tools, including the Asteroid Institute’s ADAM project.

This cloud represents the approximately three million near-Earth asteroids larger than 25 meters that need to be found. The orange dot represents the 20,614, or less than .01%, that have currently been found. In 2018, 1,839 new near-Earth asteroids were found.

Upheaval Dome and the Green River, Canyonlands National Park,

by Ed Lu from the ISS IN THE LAST YEAR

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ASTEROID INSTITUTE LETTER FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

NUMBER OF NEAR-EARTH ASTEROIDS LARGER THAN A GIVEN SIZE

This year the Asteroid Institute continued to advance the 1,000,000

science and technologies to discover, track, and calculate the

[MORE THAN 5 MILLION]

trajectories of asteroids. The good news is that observatories around the world today have continued their successes at finding and tracking larger asteroids. And soon to be deployed mega-telescopes funded by government and academic syndicates promise to make a substantial contribution to the tracked population of smaller near-Earth asteroids down to about 140 meters in

800,000

under 140 meters in diameter will require different techniques and technologies.

The principal project of the Asteroid Institute is ADAM, the Asteroid Decision Analysis and Mapping platform. ADAM is a platform for mapping, modeling, and analyzing asteroid observations and will form the basis for building future services such as mission planning, asteroid risk visualization, space navigation, and resource mapping.

Such services will be important to a future space-based economy, for scientific studies, and for protecting Earth from asteroid impacts. ADAM’s orbit propagation and astrodynamics algorithms are hosted on the Google’s Cloud Services Platform, which enables large-scale parallel computations. Some exciting things from our work on ADAM are outlined in more detail on pages 10 and 11 of this report.

NUMBER OF ASTEROIDS

diameter. However, tracking the several million much harder to see smaller asteroids

600,000

Chelyabinsk, 2013 19 m (62 ft) 30 A-bombs equivalent 0.2% currently tracked of approx. 5 million

City Killer Tunguska, 1908 45 m (148 ft) 400 A-bombs equivalent 3% currently tracked of approx. 500,000

Civilization Ender 1,000 m (3,281 ft) 150,000 A-bombs equivalent 94% currently tracked of approx. 1,000

400,000

We are also pleased to share that we have secured funding from several new sources to support the expansion of our ADAM development team.

Projects such as ADAM support the Asteroid Institute’s vision of developing a dynamic

NASA Goal 140 m (459 ft) Regional or Small State 7,000 A-bombs equivalent 33% currently tracked of approx 25,000

map of the inner solar system. This map, which is powered by world-class research partners and a global community of donors, will not only protect the planet from asteroid impacts, but it will also support efforts to open new frontiers and, potentially,

200,000

form a foundation for expansion of humanity into the solar system.

To our future,

200

Dr. Ed Lu Executive Director, Asteroid Institute

8

LETTER FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ASTEROID INSTITUTE

400

600

800

DIAMETER OF ASTEROID (METERS) You can see from the boxes that nearly all near-Earth asteroids larger than one kilometer have been tracked, but the vast majority of smaller asteroids remain to be tracked. A-bomb equivalent is a measure of the explosive energy released, not radioactive by-products. *Underlying data set for this visualization from Alan Harris.

1,000

ASTEROID INSTITUTE UNDERSTANDING WHAT IT TAKES TO DIVERT ASTEROIDS

long ahead of time we must take action. These results will help us understand the requirements for real-life spacecraft designs to deflect asteroids. Over the next few years, this work will be especially relevant as asteroid deflection tests are carried out.

For instance, the upcoming NASA Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission

By Dr. Ed Lu Depending when we act upon it, how hard is it to move an asteroid?

Are there big variations in deflection difficulty?

How will this research help us protect Earth from asteroid impacts?

will be launched in July 2021 to test a kinetic impact asteroid deflection by running into a small asteroid and measuring the resultant change in trajectory. For the first time, humanity will change the orbit of a celestial body! You can follow updates on this exciting mission at the DART homepage. One big unknown in this mission is how much asteroid material will be thrown off in the collision with the DART spacecraft, which

Asteroid Institute Senior Researcher Dr. Sarah Greenstreet was the lead author on

affects how much impulse is transmitted to the asteroid. A principal goal of the DART

a recently submitted research paper entitled “Required Deflection Impulses as a

mission and a proposed ESA follow-on mission called HERA is to measure this effect.

Function of Time Before Impact for Earth-Impacting Asteroids,” with contributors

Once we better understand the real-world effectiveness of kinetic impactors and

Mike Loucks, John Carrico, Tatiana Kichkaylo, Mario Juric, and myself. This paper

other asteroid deflection mechanisms, we will be able to use this knowledge together

examines the range of difficulty (technically, the magnitude of the imparted change

with our understanding of required deflection impulses from Dr. Greenstreet’s paper

in velocity) for deflecting asteroids depending upon how long prior to impact action

to better plan for and execute an actual asteroid deflection (which we know we will

is taken. We find that there is a considerable spread in difficulty to deflect asteroids,

someday face).

with some requiring an order of magnitude more or less deflection impulse than the median. We identified the easy cases as being primarily asteroids with more highly sensitive trajectories due to their being affected by an earlier close approach to a planet. Unfortunately, the easiest to deflect asteroids are also the ones that are most difficult to identify as being on an impact trajectory. The more difficult cases, on the other hand, were primarily due to asteroids being on an overtaking trajectory with Earth (or vice versa), much like a rear-end car collision on a highway. From a scientific standpoint, what was significant about this work is that we were able to quantify the actual distributions of deflection difficulty as a function of time prior to impact.

To carry out the work on the Greenstreet et al. paper required the simulation of the trajectories of ten thousand theoretical (or virtual) asteroids whose orbits were chosen to match the distribution of actual Earth-impacting asteroids, which required us to build a very fast asteroid orbit propagator. A propagator allows us to calculate the future location of an asteroid based on its initial location and velocity, taking into account the gravity fields of the Sun and planets, as well as other much smaller effects, including the gravity of other asteroids, the non-sphericity of the Sun and planets, and even corrections due to the curvature of space-time from Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity! The computational infrastructure we built for this research paper will also

The practical application of this work is that it helps us better understand the planetary

become a key building block of the Asteroid Decision and Mapping (ADAM) project.

defense requirements for both asteroid tracking as well as asteroid deflection. Knowing the types of orbits that are most difficult to deflect will help us design telescope observing strategies for finding those impacting asteroids earlier in order to be able to deflect them with less difficulty. Conversely, knowing the types of orbits that are

The ADAM project is made possible through the support of a community of

the most difficult to identify as threats will also help us design observing strategies

donors around the world including the William K. Bowes Jr. Foundation, Steve

to focus more attention on these asteroids. And by better understanding the range of deflection scenarios we are likely to face, we will also better understand not only

Jurvetson, Tito’s Handmade Vodka, and three anonymous major donors, in addition to donors from 46 countries.

how much we need to alter asteroid trajectories in order to deflect them, but how

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UNDERSTANDING WHAT IT TAKES TO DIVERT ASTEROIDS

UNDERSTANDING WHAT IT TAKES TO DIVERT ASTEROIDS

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ASTEROID INSTITUTE IMPACT PROBABILITY & THE SPIRIT OF OPENNESS

By Professor Mario Juric and Joachim Moeyens The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), due to enter operation in 2022, will conduct the largest census of bodies in the solar system, including the population of nearby potentially hazardous asteroids. The members of our team located at the DIRAC Institute at the University of Washington—the center of solar system software efforts for LSST—are working to understand how objects on a collision course with Earth would be discovered by LSST. If the LSST finds such an object, would we immediately know it’s heading toward a collision? If not, when would we know? At what point does the probability of impact turn into certainty? When that happens, will there be enough time to react? Or should we deploy other telescopes to

Ninety-nine out of one hundred asteroids arrive unannounced.

The way forward on this is not to rely on hope as your strategy. We can do something about it and we should.

ED LU

proactively follow up potentially dangerous discoveries?

To answer these questions, our team is developing a simulation framework that makes use of the ADAM platform to create tens of thousands of simulations of how the LSST would observe an asteroid on a collision course with Earth. Each studied case faithfully simulates how the discovery and the recognition of an impending impact would unfold. We look at when the object would first be discovered and whether the preliminary orbit indicates it is dangerous. The system then observes how such an asteroid’s

impact probability changes (grows) as more and more observations are added. And, finally, we assess the thresholds of when the probability indicates targeted follow-up (and, ultimately, mitigation action) is needed.

The results of this study will be published next year. They will give the community a roadmap on how to follow up and react to potential impactors discovered with the LSST. And in the spirit of B612’s commitment to openness, the frameworks and analysis software we have built in the process will be made available for everyone to verify and use.

A volcano in the Pacific Northwest,

by Ed Lu from the ISS

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IMPACT PROBABILITY & THE SPIRIT OF OPENNESS

PROGRAM EVOLUTION

2002

2008–2009

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

B612 founded with the goal of significantly altering the orbit of an asteroid in a controlled manner.

B612 funds design study at JPL showing feasibility of the gravity tractor.

B612 releases asteroid impact video with data from the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization.

B612’s “Sentinel to Find 500,000 Near-Earth Asteroids,” published in IEEE Spectrum.

Asteroid Day is recognized by the United Nations and holds 500 events worldwide.

B612 launches the Asteroid Institute program, a virtual organization comprised of planetary scientists and engineers around the world.

Asteroid Institute announces Google and AGI as ADAM technology partners.

Final report on Sentinel’s infrared technology research and synthetic tracking shared with the National Academy of Sciences.

B612 is Founding Sponsor of the Asteroid Day project, a global asteroid-awareness campaign.

B612 hosts Bay Area Asteroid Day event with California Academy of Sciences.

2012–2013

B612 leads the Apophis debate.

B612 announces the Sentinel Space Telescope project.

Asteroid Day project holds 150 events worldwide.

Sentinel project passes its first major technical review.

2005 B612 announces the invention of the gravity tractor in Nature.

B612 endorses NEOCam and LSST for 100 m+ solution and stops fundraising for Sentinel project.

B612 funds Caltech research study to validate synthetic tracking feasibility.

Asteroid Institute builds team for ADAM to provide analytical tools for asteroid defense scenarios.

B612 publishes call for shared solar system map in Financial Times.

SENTINEL

TE IS DEBA APOPH TRACTOR GRAVITY

On Asteroid Day, 2,000+ events held worldwide, 48hour live asteroid broadcast, and United Nations OOSA publishes Planetary Defence Report.

Asteroid Institute publishes synthetic tracking results as a NASA technical report.

SYNTHE TIC TRA CKING ASTERO ID

ASE NEO COMMITTEE

2012–2013

Congress gives NASA the goal of finding 90 percent of asteroids larger than 140 meters, called the George E. Brown Jr. Act.

Open letter sent to NASA about deflection mission planning and discussions regarding potential impact of asteroid 2011 AG5.

2006 United Nations ASE NEO Committee initiated.

A 19 m meteor exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, injuring over 1,500 people and damaging thousands of buildings across six cities.

UN Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space and General Assembly pass resolution creating International Asteroid Warning Network.

Construction project for Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) begins.

Asteroid Day celebrates 5th anniversary and streams 21day global broadcast about asteroids.

ADAM Engineer Funding campaign launched.

DAY

ASTER OID

2005

Asteroid Institute research on deflection impulses to move asteroids presented at Planetary Defense Conference.

2016

2014

2012

2010

2008

2006

2004

2002

B612 Foundation celebrates 15th anniversary.

Asteroid Institute announces appointment of Senior Research Fellows.

NASA announces Planetary Defense Coordination Office.

2018

2004–2008

B612 begins Asteroid Decision Analysis and Mapping project (ADAM) to improve the ability to make decisions on potential asteroid threats.

Asteroid Day project moves to Luxembourg and holds a 24-hour live asteroids broadcast. 1,200 events are held worldwide.

Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA) almost funded by EU and USA.

DECIS ION

ANAL YSIS A ND M APPI NG (A DA

Pew Research poll shows Americans believe asteroid monitoring should be national priority.

Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) fully funded for 2022 impact.

M)

The Hayabusa2 spacecraft surveyed the asteroid Ryugu.

The Japanese mission will return samples of Ryugu from above and below the surface.

Associated Press research shows Americans believe asteroid monitoring should be a national priority.

ASTEROID INSTITUTE RESEARCHERS & COLLABORATORS Hank Grabowski, Software and Aerospace Engineer

Dr. Mario Juric, Associate Professor of Astronomy, University of Washington

Virginia Tech, BS and MS in Aerospace, Aeronautical, and Astronautical Engineering

Princeton University, PhD in Astrophysics

Hank is a co-founder of ADS, a leading aerospace

Professor Juric holds the Washington Research Foundation

engineering, software development, and space situational

Data Science Term Chair. He is a Senior Fellow at the uni-

awareness company and served as the company’s Chief

versity’s eScience Institute, dedicated to advancing research

Technology Officer. ADS was acquired by L3Harris in 2018.

in big data. Professor Juric is also the Solar System Data

Hank currently serves as an open-source software and

Processing Lead for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope

decentralized web advocate and independent consultant.

(LSST), the largest astronomical survey ever to be undertaken.

His ADAM contributions focus on implementing the open-

His ADAM contributions focus on applying and extending

source

ADAM to large, LSST-scale asteroid discovery problems.

astrodynamics

computation

components

and

integration with analysis and visualization tools.

Joachim Moeyens, University of Washington Postdoctoral Researcher Dr. Sarah Greenstreet, Senior Researcher University of British Columbia, MS and PhD in Astronomy

University of Washington, BS and MS in Physics and Astronomy, PhD (in progress) Moeyens is interested in big data and software-driven

Dr. Greenstreet’s research interests include near-Earth

solutions to problems in astronomy. He is now working

asteroid orbital dynamics, main-belt asteroid resonances,

on algorithms to discover minor planets in astronomical

co-orbital solar system objects, impact and crater formation

surveys, in particular, on the LSST’s Moving Object Pipeline

rates, resonant mechanisms that create retrograde asteroids,

System (MOPS) and on a novel algorithm named Tracklet-

and near-Earth object population modeling. Her work with

less Heliocentric Orbit Recovery (THOR). His ADAM

the ADAM platform includes studying the change in velocity

contributions focus on simulating LSST discoveries of

that must be imparted to an impacting asteroid in order to

synthetic impactor asteroids and understanding how their

deflect it from Earth.

impact probability evolves over time.

Lowell Hanson, Astrodynamicist

Allan Posner, Systems Engineer and Astrodynamicist

Colorado State University, MS Systems Engineering (in progress)

Johns Hopkins University, MS in Computer Science, BA and MA in Physics

Lowell completed his BS in Aerospace Physics at Metropolitan

Allan has played integral roles in NASA and DoD programs.

State University of Denver in 2019. He is now pursuing an MS

For NASA’s Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR), he

in Systems Engineering at Colorado State University and also

designed and performed in-flight trajectory-correction

working as a research assistant at CSU’s Energy Institute. His

maneuvers and led in-flight operations of the magnetometer

ADAM contributions focus on developing end-user software

and

to interact with ADAM.

contributions focus on analyzing potential PHA-collision

the

multi-spectral-imaging

camera.

His

ADAM

scenarios and creating use cases for subsequent predictions and analyses.

16

RESEARCHERS & COLLABORATORS

RESEARCHERS & COLLABORATORS

17

COSMIC BIRTH, EVOLUTION, AND OUR SHARED RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE FUTURE A Retrospective by Rusty Schweickart

Why do we celebrate the 50th anniversary of anything? The “thing” was the big deal, right? So then it must be to remind us of what that thing 50 years ago was and why it is now still worthy of thinking about and celebrating. Was Apollo 9 that big a deal? Well, it’s certainly a big deal in that it was the mission that I flew on! In and of itself, however, Apollo 9 was just one essential step of many in the Apollo program. It didn’t even go to the Moon! So what’s the big deal?

For me, it’s not any one flight. The big enough deal, for me, is to reflect on Apollo having been a collective decision, 50 years ago, to send out from Earth a small cohort of humans to another world. From that barren, desolate, colorless world, we humans (for we all went) looked back at Earth, the home of all the life that we know of, and realized in a personal way that we both love Earth (Mom) and are beginning a historic voyage into the larger cosmos. That is a big deal.

I choose to view this as cosmic birth. More pragmatic people might reflect on it as Kennedy’s response to the Soviet geopolitical challenge. Or perhaps as the inevitable consequence of advances in rocket technology needed to deliver nuclear weapons. To

the ASE. We fly together on the International Space Station. We are well aware of the issues and tensions between and among our home nations. But we sense a larger future.

We’ve worked in laboratories and in the UN to develop the technology and geopolitical

Earthrise by Bill Anders, Apollo 8 and B612 Founding Circle member

systems to protect Earth from devastating asteroid impacts. We are on an evolutionary process of living off this planet in the future. We can no longer burden Earth, and we are a biological species which will expand. We will grow, go beyond, and extend.

We started Asteroid Day with a recognition that we will one day be a multi-planet

mandate for life to grow and survive. And for Earth life, this mandate translates into

species. But before that, we need to first deal with the existential threat of asteroid

reaching out beyond the planet into the cosmos. We’ve now peeked out beyond the

impacts in order to give us the time to become the multi-planet species we will

birth canal as far as the Moon, but we have no more of a clue than a baby does of what

eventually evolve into. We have the intelligence and the power to ensure the survival

life will hold. What we do know now is that we really love our Mom and that we are just

of life on Earth. It is up to us.

We know technically how to protect Earth, but the big challenge in ensuring we don’t

The Apollo 8 guys “got this” as they watched, almost in shock, the beautiful blue

succumb to this existential threat is geopolitical. The decision to deflect an asteroid

and white Earthrise over the grey, cratered, lunar horizon. Archibald MacLeish “got it”

is a planetary decision. This is a decision in which time is of the essence. We started

when he wrote about the crew half way to the Moon, looking back at Earth “… What

Asteroid Day to begin the process of understanding this existential threat so that when

came to their minds was the life on that little, lonely, floating planet; that tiny raft in the

it actually manifests, we can respond to it collectively.

enormous, empty night. ‘Is it inhabited?’”

RUSTY SCHWEICKART RETROSPECTIVE

men and women from 38 countries, each of whom has flown in space, are members of

me those, and other real and logical reasons, pale in comparison with the evolutionary

beginning an amazing journey!

18

and love for the planet than to remain separate in our national tribes. Today, over 400

So, for me, this is the big deal worthy of celebration 50 years after we first landed

We went to the Moon as Americans; we’ll go to Mars and further as people from Earth.

on the Moon. Landed on the Moon … and looked back at Earth! What we saw was a

I started the Association of Space Explorers at the height of the Cold War because I

fantastic reality: the unbelievably beautiful home of all the life in our little corner of the

knew that it was far more important that we few astronauts and cosmonauts who had

universe. What we realized was our responsibility for doing whatever we can to extend

seen Earth with our own eyes from space get together to celebrate our commonality

and continue this amazing evolutionary experiment we call life.

RUSTY SCHWEICKART RETROSPECTIVE

19

ASTEROID DAY INTERNSHIP PROGRAM Funding of B612 helps support the Asteroid Day internship program. Members of the program join the Asteroid Day team in Luxembourg for hands-on experience in a startup environment and produce the global broadcast and local programs.

ASTEROID

EDUCATION

ASTEROID DAY GLOBAL This year marks the 5th anniversary of Asteroid Day, a UN-recognized day of public awareness modeled after Earth Day. Since Asteroid Day launched, it has delivered six billion impressions globally in print and broadcast and has enabled thousands of

Joelle Byars

Abdalla Dafiah

COPYWRITING AND OPERATIONS

VIDEO TECHNICIAN

University of Nebraska–Lincoln MA and PhD in English (in progress)

Metropolitan State University of Denver BA in Video Production (in progress)

independently organized events around the world. Asteroid Day started with a global call to action titled “The 100X Declaration.” The 100X Declaration received international attention, garnering a global cross section of signatures from B612 supporters, scientists, astronauts, global business leaders, celebrities, and notables.

The 100X Declaration calls on the world to: (1) Employ available technology to detect and track near-Earth asteroids via governments and private and philanthropic organizations; (2) advance a rapid hundredfold acceleration of the discovery and tracking of near-Earth asteroids to 100,000 per year within the next ten years; and (3) promote a global adoption of Asteroid Day on June 30.

In the five years since Asteroid Day was launched, the third goal was achieved within

Forrest Pommer-Schindler

Lisa Franck

STUDIO MANAGER

OPERATIONS

San Francisco State University BA in Broadcast Communications (in progress)

Miami University BS in Kinesiology (in progress)

one year. The first two goals have made modest global progress, but more work must be done in the area of asteroid discovery, as we highlight in this report. B612 aims to achieve the first two goals through research and technology at the Asteroid Institute.

Zach Gerber

Katie Young

GRAPHIC DESIGNER

VIDEO EDITOR

Metropolitan State University of Denver BA in Technical Comm and Interactive Media (expected 2019)

Metropolitan State University of Denver MS in Technical Communications, 2019

21

ASTEROID

EDUCATION

Our Asteroid Education program increases awareness about asteroids and science through public speaking and exposure in the media. In addition to Asteroid Day, this year we shared stories about our work and why the world should learn more about asteroids. We have highlighted a few public education activities from this last year.

Dr. Ed Lu, Danica Remy, Rusty Schweickart, and Others ASTEROID DAY LIVE!

Rusty Schweickart

Dr. Ed Lu

SPACE.COM

“A METEOR EXPLODED OVER THE

Members of B612 and the scientific com-

BERING SEA WITH THE ENERGY OF

munity gathered in Luxembourg for three

B612 co-founder Rusty Schweickart dis-

10 ATOMIC BOMBS,” POPULAR SCIENCE

cussed the multidimensional aspects of asteroids, asteroid deflection, and Apollo 9.

Popular Science interviewed Ed Lu about the meteor that exploded in early 2019 over the Bering Sea.

days of programming, broadcast to millions

Dr. Ed Lu

of households, to encourage the conversation

NPR’S WEEKEND EDITION

about asteroids and planetary defense.

Ed Lu was featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition about the meteor that exploded over the Bering Sea.

November

December

2019

March

April

June

August

Dr. Ed Lu

Dr. Ed Lu, Featured Speaker

John Carrico and Mike Loucks

Danica Remy

DAVID RUMSEY MAP CENTER,

THE LONG NOW FOUNDATION

AGI PODCAST

NBC NEWS

Ed spoke to guests at the Long Now

Analytical

hosted

Danica Remy highlights the need to advance

Ed Lu partnered with the David Rumsey Map

Foundation about the need for a four-

Asteroid Institute Astrodynamicists John

asteroid discovery and create an inventory of

Center at Stanford University to present our

dimensional map of the inner solar system.

Carrico and Mike Loucks on their podcast.

all the asteroids near Earth.

STANFORD UNIVERSITY

vision to chart the high frontier of space.

Graphics

Inc.

(AGI)

They discussed the Asteroid Institute’s latest research on propagating asteroid orbits and predicting the force needed to prevent an asteroid from hitting Earth and how AGI’s STK software is helping us achieve this.

22

ASTEROID EDUCATION

ASTEROID EDUCATION

23

FOUNDING CIRCLE

ASTEROID CIRCLE

ANONYMOUS x 7

Eliot Gillum

Scott McGregor and Laurie Girand

Rick Armstrong

ANONYMOUS LEADERSHIP GIFT x 3*

Glaser Progress Foundation

Matt Mullenweg

The Barringer Crater Company

Bill Anders

Dane Glasgow

Diane Murphy

Jim Chervenak

Geoffrey Baehr

Steve and Julie Grimm

Peter Norvig

Lynn and Anisya Fritz

William K. Bowes Jr. Foundation*

Garrett Gruener and Amy Slater

Shervin Pishevar

Arthur Gleckler and Kristine Kelly

Brian Burton and James Mercer,

VK Hsu & Sons Foundation Ltd.

The Peggy Rawls Family Fund

Jensen Huang

James D. and Justin Jameson

Ray Rothrock

Tito’s Handmade Vodka

Don Carlson

Margaret Jonsson Family Foundation

Edwin Sahakian

Vinton and Sigrid Cerf

Steve Jurvetson*

Rusty Schweickart and Nancy Ramsey

Y(Imc) Chapman

Dominik Kaiser

Tim Trueman

Emily and David Corrigan

Steve Krausz

Robert C. and Fallon B. Vaughn

Asa Denton

Vladas Lašas

Ben Wheeler

Esther Dyson

James Leszczenski

Yishan Wong and Kimberly Algeri-Wong

Alan Eustace

David Liddle and Ruthann Quindlen

Sasha Galitsky

Suzanna Mak

Gillikin Family

Greg McAdoo

Broken Bells

Top row (left to right): Hillary Aiken, Yvonne Ellington, and John Montrym; John Kobs and Danica Remy; Dana Stalder, Rusty Schweickart, and Guests at Meteor Crater.

Bottom row (left to right): Ed Lu and Erik Charlton; Paul Chodas, Mark Boslough, and Clark Chapman; Guests at the Asteroid Day Tech Briefing in Luxembourg.

24

FOUNDING CIRCLE

*Leadership Gift ($1 M–$5 M)

Top row (left to right): Magdalena and Xavier Thillen; Tim Dougherty, Nicholas Paul Brysiewicz, and Benjamin Grant at The Interval; Lynne Jones of the DIRAC Institute.

Bottom row (left to right): Meredith Moss, Rusty Schweickart, and Lisa Burke at the Asteroid Day Gala; Guests at the Asteroid Day Tech Briefing; Romanian Cosmonaut Dorin Prunariu, Tatiana Zamfiroiu, Crina Prunariu, and Romanian Ambassador Lilian Zamfiroiu.

ASTEROID CIRCLE

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We have donors from 46 countries.

DONOR HONOR ROLL All Gifts $500–$24,999*

ANONYMOUS

Aki Korhonen

Eric Tilenius

Andrew Baruch

Sam Lichtenstein

Jan Magne Tjensvold

Richard Bowen

Scott Manley

Varian Family Fund

Rick Bradford

Bob McIntosh

James and Cynthia Walker

John Clendenin

Ernie McNabb

Sam Welsh

John Conery

Michael Meek

Magnus Wentzel

George Cornecelli

John Kenneth Menges Jr.

Lawrence Wilkinson

Steve Denning

Glenn Mercer

Jon Winston

Albert Ender

Patrick Murphy

Matt Wyndowe

Ray Erikson

Drummond Pike

Joseph L. Fischer

Dirk Pranke

Patrick D. Garvey

Kathryn Roberts

Daniel and Dean Hawes

Scott and Nola Schneider

Keith Hughes

Rolf Schreiber

Robert Jedicke

James Sewell

Glen Knowles

Douglas Simpkinson

* From September 1, 2018, to October 1, 2019

Tibet, by Ed Lu from the International Space Station

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DONOR HONOR ROLL

GOVERNING BOARD

B612 FOUNDATION

HEADQUARTERED

Dr. David Liddle, Chair

Danica Remy, President

IN SILICON VALLEY

Geoffrey Baehr Dr. Clark Chapman Dr. Dan Durda Garrett Gruener Dr. Ed Lu, Co-Founder Danica Remy, President Lawrence Wilkinson

Hillary Aiken, Vice President Joelle Byars Writer & Operations — Univ. Nebraska Daniel de Zeeuw Data & Business Systems Manager Diane Murphy Vice President, PR Alex Shwe Operations — Univ. Wisconsin

ASTEROID INSTITUTE, A PROGRAM OF B612

ASTEROID DAY TEAM

Dr. Ed Lu, Executive Director

Dr. Brian May, Co-Founder, United Kingdom Danica Remy, Co-Founder, California, USA Grig Richters, Co-Founder, Germany Rusty Schweickart, Co-Founder, California, USA

Dr. Marc Buie, Mission Scientist Jonny Dyer, Spacecraft Systems Engineer Dr. Scott Hubbard, Mission Strategist Dr. Roger Linfield, Mission Analyst Dr. Harold Reitsema, Mission Director Dr. Sam Waldman, Avionic Engineer ADAM PROJECT TEAM

John Carrico, Project Manager and Astrodynamicist Dr. Siegfried Eggl, Researcher Hank Grabowski, Systems Engineer and Astrodynamicist Dr. Sarah Greenstreet, Senior Researcher Lowell Hanson III, Astrodynamicist

Hillary Aiken, Gala Manager, California, USA Max Alexander, Photographer, United Kingdom Venelin Bochev, Operations Manager, Bulgaria Leonie Boucheron, Production, Luxembourg Joelle Byars, Copy & Operations, Hawaii, USA Abdalla Dafiah, Video Technician, Colorado, USA Daniel de Zeeuw, Data Systems, California, USA Colleen Fiaschetti, Brand & Project Manager, Utah, USA Lisa Franck, Production, California, USA Zach Gerber, Graphic Design, Colorado, USA

Dean Hawes, Technical Program Manager

Philippine Griveaud, Sponsors & Speakers, Luxembourg

Dr. Mario Juric, Research Advisor

Chris Jennings, Production, Colorado, USA

Dr. Tatiana Kichkaylo, Senior Engineer

Diane Murphy, Press Relations, California, USA

Laura Lark, Engineer

Forrest Pommer-Schindler, Studio Manager, California USA

Mike Loucks, Astrodynamicist Joachim Moeyens, Researcher Samira Motiwala, Astrodynamicist Allan Posner, Systems Engineer and Astrodynamicist Dr. Vivek Vittaldev, Mission Researcher

Dorin Prunariu, Asteroid Day Ambassador, Romania Razvan-Petru Radu, Advisor, Luxembourg Georges Schmit, Chair, Luxembourg Katie Young, Video Editor, Colorado, USA

MAILING ADDRESS

20 Sunnyside Ave., Suite 427 Mill Valley, CA 94941 United States Phone 650-644-4539 www.b612foundation.org

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