Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research - History

History

In the late 1970s, a prototype called the Lincoln Laboratory Experimental Test System (ETS) (MPC code 704) was built at WSMR. The project used low-light video cameras. In 1994 a new proposal was made for automated detection of asteroids, this time using newer digital detector technology. The LINEAR project began operating a near-Earth object (NEO) discovery facility in 1996 using a 1.0 m (39 in) aperture telescope designed for the Air Force Space Command's Ground-based Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance (GEODSS). The wide-field Air Force telescopes were designed for optical observation of Earth-orbiting spacecraft. Initial field tests used a 1024 × 1024 pixel charge-coupled device (CCD) detector. While this CCD detector filled only about one fifth of the telescope's field of view, four near-earth objects were discovered. A 1960 × 2560 pixel CCD which covered the telescope's two-square degree field of view was then installed, and both detectors were used in later tests.

The first LINEAR telescope became fully operational in March of 1998. Beginning in October 1999, a second 1.0 m telescope was added to the search effort. In 2002, a 0.5 m (20 in) telescope equipped with the original CCD was brought on-line to provide follow-up observations for the discoveries made by the two search telescopes. This allowed about 20% more of the sky to be searched each night. Data recorded by the telescopes is sent to a Lincoln Laboratory facility at Hanscom Air Force Base in Lexington, Massachusetts for processing. Detections are then forwarded to the Minor Planet Center.