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NASA asteroid tracking program takes a hit

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA's effort to identify potentially dangerous space rocks has taken a hit.

On Monday, the space agency's inspector general released a report blasting NASA's Near Earth Objects program, which is meant to hunt and catalog comets, asteroids and relatively large fragments of these objects that pass within 28 million miles of Earth. The purpose is to protect the planet against their potential dangers.

Near Earth Objects, or NEOs, in a range of sizes pepper our planet frequently, though most harmlessly disintegrate in the atmosphere before reaching Earth's surface. But there are exceptions, like the nearly 60-foot meteor that exploded over Russia in February 2013, causing considerable damage. From 2000 to 2013, the B612 Foundation, an organization of former NASA astronauts who want to build a comprehensive asteroid detection system, says 26 meteorites big enough to equal the impact of an atomic bomb struck the Earth. Fortunately, most landed far from humans.

In the 44-page report released Monday, Inspector General Paul Martin said the NASA Near Earth Objects program needs to be better organized and managed, with a bigger staff.

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This plot by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Near Earth Object program office shows the predicted path of asteroid 2012 DA14 as it made a record close flyby of Earth on Friday at an altitude of roughly 17,200 miles. The asteroid passed well within the ring of geostationary weather and communications satellites orbiting 22,300 miles above the equator. NASA

For nearly a decade, the report noted, NASA has been tracking Near Earth Objects bigger than 140 meters (about 460 feet) across. The goal was to catalog 90 percent of them by 2020.

The space agency has discovered and plotted the orbits of more than 11,000 NEOs since 1998, an estimated 10 percent of the total number of objects. It does not expect to meet the 2020 deadline.

The program has insufficient oversight, Martin's office concluded, and no established milestones to track progress. In addition, NASA needs to do a better job of overseeing the various observatories searching for NEOs and teaming up with other U.S. and international agencies, the report said.

NASA's science mission chief, former astronaut John Grunsfeld, agreed and promised the problems will be addressed. The Agency noted in its written response to the report that it would institute a "formal NASA NEO Program" with a strategic planning process, milestones, and reviews.

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