Thales Alenia Space has secured a contract from Ball Aerospace, the prime contractor for NASA's Near Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor mission, to provide critical communications components for the spacecraft destined for Earth-sun Lagrange point 1.
Announced on February 13, the contract entails Thales Alenia Space supplying NEO Surveyor's S-band transponder, K-band modulator, and K-band traveling wave tube amplifier. These components will enable the transmission of data over 1.5 million kilometers between L1 and Earth.
Ken Fischer, Thales Alenia Space's director of business development for North America, expressed excitement about the mission, stating, “The entire company is very excited to be part of this mission. The NEO Surveyor program has been a long time coming.”
Managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the NEO Surveyor mission is scheduled to launch no earlier than September 2027. The spacecraft will be equipped with an infrared camera to scan the solar system, measuring and characterizing asteroids and comets more than 140 meters across that travel within 50 million kilometers of Earth's orbit.
The successful modification of the orbit of Dimorphos, a moon orbiting near-Earth asteroid Didymos, by NASA's Double Asteroid Redirect Test in 2022 highlighted the importance of locating asteroids. Miriam Catalan, Thales Alenia Space's business development manager for international markets, emphasized this point, noting the catastrophic potential if a large asteroid were to strike Earth.
Thales Alenia Space, a joint venture between Thales of France and Leonardo of Italy, did not disclose the value of the NEO Surveyor equipment contract.
Thales Alenia Space will manufacture NEO Surveyor transponders in Madrid and modulators in Toulouse, France, while traveling wave tube amplifiers will be produced in Charleroi, Belgium.
Communications for the NEO Surveyor mission present challenges, including radiation levels and receiver sensitivity required for spacecraft at L1. Fischer noted, “But those are all issues that we strive to make routine.”
Emmanuel Terrasse, Thales Alenia's vice president of equipment, expressed enthusiasm about the mission's impact, stating, “We are thrilled to provide key communications equipment for the NEO Surveyor mission, which will represent a significant advance in NASA-led planetary defense efforts to protect our planet from hazardous asteroids and comets.”