NASA Reactivates Hibernating Spacecraft WISE to Hunt for Asteroids

NASA announced Wednesday that its WISE spacecraft will come out of its two-year hibernation next month to resume identifying potentially hazardous near- Earth objects (NEO) as well as those that are suitable for future asteroid exploration missions.

"Reactivating WISE is an excellent example of how we are leveraging existing capabilities across the agency to achieve our goal," said John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for science in Washington.

NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) was launched in December 2009 to hunt  celestial heat sources from asteroids, stars and galaxies. During its primary mission that spanned from January 2010-February 2011, WISE captured nearly 7,500 images.

On completing its primary mission it ventured into another four month mission called NEOWISE where its aim was to hunt asteroids and comets near earth.  For this mission the spacecraft operated at half its capabilities as NASA had switched off most of WISE's electronics at the end of the primary mission.

During the 2010 period, it captured more that 158,000 rocky bodies and nearly 600,000 identifiable objects.  Some of the discoveries made during this mission included 21 comets, more than 34,000 asteroids in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter, and 135 near-Earth objects.

"The team is ready and after a quick checkout, we're going to hit the ground running," said Amy Mainzer, NEOWISE principal investigator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., in a press statement. "NEOWISE not only gives us a better understanding of the asteroids and comets we study directly, but it will help us refine our concepts and mission operation plans for future, space-based near-Earth object cataloging missions."

The space agency will recycle its sleeping spacecraft WISE next month and hunt for space rocks orbiting within 28 million miles from the Earth's path around the sun. NASA also hopes that the spacecraft will utilize its 16 inch telescope to detect nearly 150 previously unknown NEOs.