NEO-MAPP
NEO-MAPP (Near-Earth-Object - Modelling and Payloads for Protection) is a project for studying planetary defense and asteroid exploration. This project is focused on two main topics, that are: on one side, maturation of existing digital modelisation capacities of various process governing asteroids evolution (impact, dynamic, structural evolution) and its adaptation to specific use cases, and, on the other side, development of instruments, technologies and data exploitation models linked to it, in order to support space missions towards near-Earth-objects. Presentation. The NEO-MAPP project, financed by the European Commission through its Horizon 2020 programme, is  coordinated by the French Centre Nationale de la Recherche Spatiale and its coordinator Patrick Michel, from Lagrange Laboratory, who is also the Principal Investigator of ESA's Hera space mission, the reference mission of the project. The reference mission of the NEO-MAPP project is the Hera mission, currently under development under the Space Security programme at the European Space Agency (ESA), which will be launched on October, 2024 with aim to measure impact results of the NASA's DART mission on satellite Dimorphos, part of the double asteroid (65803) Didymos. Hera will also characterize the entire physical properties and  composition of the double asteroid, including for the first time, internal properties. NEO-MAPP activities therefore accompany the Hera mission development, both in term of digital modellisation than in term of developing some instruments aboard the probe and analysis tools obtain by the mission. Most of the science team members of Hera mission are also members of NEO-MAPP. The main NEO-MAPP goal is to provide significant advances, both on understanding the response of asteroids to external forces (in particular to kinetic impact or to immediate approach of a planet), and in associated measures carried out by a space  craft (including those necessary to physical and dynamical characterization in general). Several communities are interested in asteroids for pour various reasons, from Science to planetary defense and even business objectives (for instance mining, resource extraction and exploitation). Given the principle scientific and technologic sharing, all these communities are seeking knowledge and means of asteroid property modelisations, as well as capacity to achieve operations at close proximity of a celestial small body and to obtain relevant measures. Multidisciplinary approach at the heart of NEO-MAPP offers the possibility to accomplish significant advances on each of these aspects. The most threatening asteroids  with a trajectory crossing the Earth orbit – in terms of collisions frequency with Earth – are the smallest, the ones whose size is below 1 km. However, this is least humankind-known population, due to the fact that ground observations does not allow us to obtain measures of its physical properties at a required level of detail. Project Partners. The NEO-MAPP consortium consists of a grouping of European research instituts and of two space industries in Europe. Most of the consortium members have collaborated, under the auspices of the ESA, in exploration project of the solar system, have responsibilities within  the science team of the Hera mission, and are involved in space missions towards small bodies of other pace agencies (for instance the NASA's or the JAXA's). Furthermore, some project partners were before that members of PF7 NEOShield and/or H2020 NEOShield-2 European programmes. Here are the 15 partners of the project : Members of partner instituts contributing to work modules with a scientific vocation are renowned experts in impact process, in dynamic evolution of NEOs, and in modelisation of their physical properties, including their internal structures. This consortium includes partners having an extensive experience in developing relevant technologies and  space missions systems. Public outreach to all these activities is supervised by a partner whose experience and efficiency has been proven through the increasing success of Asteroid Day, which they organise every year since its creation in 2015. Some partnership are overlapping in terms of research field and in competences, which ensures a good and necessary synergy between the various work modules. Advisory Board. The NEO-MAPP project is lead by a 7 member-advisory board. Dr. Brian May (Queen band guitarist and co-founder of the Asteroid Day movement) assists the project on the outreach side toward general public  by producing image pairs et des stereoscopic films of the digital modelisations of the project, allowing them to be visualised in 3D. Ian Carnelli is the Hera mission manager at ESA, Dr. Michael Kueppers is the Hera mission ESA scientist, Dr. Aurélie Moussi est a small bodies mission CNES expert, Dr. Andy Cheng is one of the leader of NASA's DART mission at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physic Laboratory (APL), Dr. Paul Abell est a small bodies expert representing NASA and Pr. Makoto Yoshikawa is JAXA's Hayabusa2 mission manager. Results. Resultats obtained by the project contribute to  provide significant advances in our comprehension of NEOs while yielding profit and increasing progress in the expertise European scientists and engineers, both in terms of efforts dedicated to planetary defense and to small bodies exploration. Therefore, project members participate in publishing of several articles in peer-reviewed journals among them Science, Nature Astronomy, Nature Communications, Astronomy & Astrophysics and Icarus. Public Outreach. The project has also given itself the objective to increase media coverage of scientific space research dedicated to planatry defense, public outreach (in particular among the youngest and science and ingeneering students) to impact risks and coverage of this  global risk by the European scientific community, admittedly at low probability but factually at high consequence for Earth, by the combination of videos published on its website and by interventions in the medias. Going Beyond. Videos. Youtube channel of the NEO-MAPP project.