ESA Open Invitation to Tender AO9591
Open Date: 31/10/2018
Closing Date: 17/12/2018 13:00:00

Status: ISSUED
Reference Nr.: 18.118.19
Prog. Ref.: SSA P3 Near Earth Ob
Budget Ref.: E/0716-03 – SSA P3 Near Earth Ob
Special Prov.: AT+CH+CZ+DE+ES+FI+GR+IT+LU+PL+RO
Tender Type: C
Price Range: > 500 KEURO
Products: Ground Segment / Mission Operations / Mission Control / Engineering Support (GS S/W dev. and maintenance, …)
Techology Domains: Mission Operation and Ground Data Systems / Ground Data Systems / Mission Control System, Automation, Mission Planning, Simulators and Station M&C and Data Centre Architecture and Technologies
Establishment: ESOC
Directorate: Directorate of Operations
Department: Space Situational Awareness Programme Of
Contract Officer: Rodriguez Perulero, Marta
Industrial Policy Measure: N/A – Not apply
Last Update Date: 31/10/2018
Update Reason: Tender issue

To be able to warn of imminent asteroids or comets, the first step is to observe the night sky and look for these objects. NEO observations come in several flavours: during survey observations, NEOs are discovered; so-called follow-up observations are performed after the discovery, to ensure that the discoveries are not immediately lost again. A third step would be the physical characterisation of NEOs, e.g. by spectroscopic observations.The current two big survey programmes are the US-funded Pan-STARRS and Catalina sky surveys. In a parallel contract, ESA is developing another survey telescope. This contract focusses on performing follow-up astrometric (position) observations with existing European-owned optical telescopes and on the determination of NEO physical properties via spectroscopy. The European capabilities of observing the small end of the asteroid population via lunar impact flashes shall be assessed and supported. Funding is also foreseen to upgrade one telescope with a better CCD camera; ensuring the delivery of properly formatted image data and spectra to the databases of the NEO Coordination Centre at ESRIN in Italy. An important part of the work willbe to transfer knowledge of fast-moving objects from the SST to the NEO community and provide test cases for imaging where sub-second timing is important for the NEO domain.

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