NASA Briefing on Asteroid Threat Scenario Exercise

NASA will host a media briefing at 3:30 p.m. EDT, Thursday, June 20 to discuss the newly released quick-look summary of the fifth biennial Planetary Defense Interagency Tabletop Exercise (TTX5) held April 3, 2024. NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO), in partnership with FEMA and with the assistance of the U.S. Department of State Office of Space Affairs, convened this exercise to inform and assess our ability as a nation to respond effectively to the potential impact hazards of asteroids and other near-Earth Objects (NEOs). While there are no known significant asteroid impact threats for the foreseeable future, hypothetical exercises like this one, which are conducted about every two years, provide valuable insights on how the United States could respond effectively if a potential asteroid impact threat is identified. Participants: Lindley Johnson, NASA’s Planetary Defense Officer Emeritus, NASA Headquarters Leviticus “L.A.” Lewis, FEMA detailee to NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office, NASA Headquarters Terik Daly, planetary defense section supervisor, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory Charles Blue, Host, Media Specialist NASA Planetary Science Division To learn more about planetary defense at NASA, including the Planetary Defense Coordination Office, NASA's Near-Earth Object (NEO) Observations Program, and upcoming planetary defense flight missions, including NASA'S NEO Surveyor mission, visit: https://science.nasa.gov/planetary-defense/

What is said in the film

Hello, and welcome to NASA's media briefing on the Quick Look report released today from the fifth Planetary Defense Inter-Agency Tabletop Exercise, which was held April 2nd and third, 2024 at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. My name is Charles Blue, and I'm media specialist with NASA's Planetary Science Division and the moderator for today's event. NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office in partnership with FEMA's Response Directorate and with the assistance of the US Department of State Office of Space Affairs, convened this exercise to inform and assess our ability as a nation to respond effectively to potentially hazardous asteroids and other near-Earth objects. While there are no known significant impact threats for the foreseeable future, exercises like this one provide valuable insights on how the United States could respond if a potential asteroid impact threat were identified. Today, we will review the Quick Look report from this exercise, which is available for download at nasa.

gov/reports. The news release is at NASA gov. Forward slash news for media dialed in to the dedicated phone line. We will take questions after a brief presentation to get in the queue to ask a question. Press star one at any time.

If members of the media are watching on YouTube, you may experience a slight delay compared with the audio only phone line. Today we have three experts who are part of the tabletop exercise in April. Let me introduce them now. First, we have Lindley Johnson, NASA's planetary defense officer emeritus from NASA headquarters. Next, we have Leviticus “LA” Lewis, who is FEMA's detail to NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office at NASA headquarters.

And finally, we have Terik Daly, planetary defense scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. Thank you all for being here today. Starting in this office, Lindley will give us an overview of NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office and how the asteroids simulation exercise folds into NASA's larger planetary defense objectives. Lindley. Yes.

Thank you. Charles. Just to kind of put this exercise in context of everything that we do in the planetary defense, program at NASA. I bring up this, first chart, we call it our sector chart. what it shows are the various categories, areas of effort, that we have, projects, both within, NASA, centers and, with our partners, to perform these, critical functions that are part of the planetary defense.

first of all, starting up in the upper right, we have to find them. We've got to discover what's out there, determine the orbits, and then, determine whether they represent an impact hazard to the Earth over time. then we have efforts that are, examining these, near Earth asteroids and comets. and closer, more detail. So we understand their physical nature, so that we would know more about what we're dealing with.

should we find one that's on par with the Earth, then down at the bottom, is an area that, isn't, a lot of funding that goes to it, but a lot of, work effort goes here and planning and coordinating both across, the US, interagency and with our international partners as to what would our response be if we were to find an impact threat? And, this exercise actually, allows us to, exercise, some of those, processes and capabilities, that, we would implement, if an impact threat, were discovered than on the, lower left, mitigate, these are an area that we do, testing and, technology development, to develop, techniques and capabilities that can be used to deflect an asteroid in space. recent asteroid redirection test, was the first demonstration of such capabilities. but also here, is an area that we work with, the emergency response community, so that they are adequately prepared. if a, impact, should, should occur.

And then finally, we have to be able to assess our, progress and success, across these various areas, to make sure we're doing the best we can, to, deal with this, potential, natural disaster. and with that, let me turn it over to, Le Lewis to, talk about our efforts. here with this, exercise, the history of our, tabletop exercises and the involvement across the interagency in this one. Good afternoon. Thanks, Lily.

Next slide please. So, FEMA's mission is to help people before, during, and after disasters. We work across the country every day to help people prepare and communities understand. Prepare for risk. On this slide, what we're talking about has a specific role within the Planetary Defense Coordination Office and why I'm assigned it and Cross-agency in collaboration on initiatives like the are crucial.

So we begin our core coordination with NASA officially in 2010. But since you can see on the chart since 2013, we've had a series of exercises that have increased from our level of education, disaster management leadership to educating state local and state, federal, state and local interagency partners. And to the next five, we added an international component to make sure that each, level of exercise increased in difficulty, and they concentrated on different things such as the not the amount of time it takes to warn for an asteroid impact, and what the different challenges are going to be a current each level of government. Next slide please. So in Tabletop exercise number five and context tabletop exercise for for comparison that was held in 2022.

It's repeated. We concentrated on a short warning period. It was six months. We concentrate on what our actions would be. An interagency between the federal, state and local government and how they respond.

And then that exercise, we had participation of a municipality here in the United States, along with their local officials. We did it. The, the no internet. We have a virtual connection with them as we ran an exercise here at APL and John Hopkins, but also connected with the local authorities, both at the state and local level, which included all levels, businesses, emergency management personnel, medical personnel and then tabletop exercise five. We had this basically same place, concentrating more on federal and international partners with a very long lead time.

So there were great differences between what we had and six months. One period we would have had in a multi year waiting period. Next slide please. Again emphasizing the collaborative efforts and these kind of scenarios. The disaster management emergency response is a team sport.

So as you can see on a chart we had participants from all levels of government all throughout the entire agency, including academia, also international organizations and other space agencies. And this is very important because as we work through these problems, we know it's going to take an international effort and we concentrate on making sure that everybody's familiar with the plans, you know, with each other familiar with this type of extreme but very rare scenario so that we can work, as a team when the time comes. Next slide please. Over to you, Lily. Okay.

Thanks, Ella. as, you said, it, takes a lot of effort, across, agencies, to, have an adequate response to, this type of, of hazard, and the team that, put together this scenario, for this exercise was also across, several, NASA centers, institutions that we work with and, and the agencies, both, here in the United States and, internationally. and so this, chart shows the major, players, or the major, team scenario, participants, that set up this exercise that, we put the, interagency, through this time. next slide. so here was a scenario, that was created for this exercise.

As Ella said, it was a longer warning, exercise, that, is actually the most likely scenario, that we would, face, if we're successful and and doing our search, for the, initial, population that we will know, years, even decades in advance, of a potential impact threat and therefore have the necessary time to, to be able to, prepare for it. however, even if, the, warning time is, several years to a decade in advance or, things that, need to be immediately done, once a impact for it, is, is detected. now this, graphic here in the middle, it shows what, at the time, of, the exercise, in this, scenario, where the risk corridor was across the Earth's surface, where this, hypothetical asteroid, could impact. No, it, when the time comes, if it hasn't been successfully deflected, it will only impact, one point, along this, risk corridor. But at the time, 14 years, there are still uncertainties in the orbit.

And, this shows, the areas that could be at risk to this impact. now, when you look at the quick, quick look report, you'll see more detail about this risk corridor and, and see that there are, some major metropolitan areas that lie along, this risk corridor track, that, would be of concern, if, as the orbit uncertainties are reduced and narrowed down to a point, would certainly, want to be protected. also, at, this time there are uncertainties about how much of the population could be affected. Now it's only a 72% chance that it could impact the Earth. It may, actually, slide past, slide past us and not be an impact.

Oh, so there's, you know, chance that, there will be no, affected population, by such an impact. But there also are not insignificant, possibility these, the significant number of, population centers, could be affected. And how much they're affected is dependent upon the size of the asteroid. And at this time, just after discovery, there are still, uncertainty is, in, the size of the object, ranging anywhere from 60m in size up to 800m in size. Now, a 60 meter asteroid, impacting somewhere in the middle of the ocean.

It would not be, that much of a problem. But if it were to impact on land, particularly near a metropolitan area, could be, a serious situation. so one of the things were, demonstrated in practicing here is, how do we make decisions about what to do, given, the, still existing certainties until we know more about the asteroid. So, the next slide, so, as the, exercise, participants progressed, they were developed, courses of action that would be, presented to the leadership team. And these are the three, courses of action that were selected to be presented, since, the asteroid, at the time of this exercise, was going to, go on to the other side of the sun and not be observable, from the Earth.

it was going to be several months before we were to get to more data. So of course, one of the options is, you know, wait until it could be observed again. more data can be taken, on the asteroids position and some uncertainties, in its orbit could be, reduced or eliminated. so, we could wait, for that period of time. and know more about what the probabilities are after, that period of, inaccessibility for observing it.

but, say that after, that, it's confirmed that the asteroid is on an impact trajectory, with the Earth. so, this is a period of several months that we could at least be initiating, the activities that would give us, more information and the kind of, information we need to know how, to mitigate the asteroid its size. something about its composition. what its, trajectory is going to be. So starting development of a reconnaissance, of the asteroid is one of the first things that you'd, want to do, when, you know, you have an impact for getting, a spacecraft out to it as rapidly as possible, to give us that more, detailed information and reduce the uncertainty.

So doing a flyby, mission of the asteroid, to get good information about its actual size, and composition, is another course of action that, could be, immediately started. now, there are limitations. And what our flyby, mission, can give you, a really detailed, description of the asteroid could only be attained by spacecraft that actually rendezvous with it and observes it, over a period of time. And so a third option, although it takes longer to develop, and, orbit, get it in a horrible position with the asteroid, also takes longer. but that is another course of action taken.

either, independently or in parallel with, with, some of these others, so that's, the how the scenario, played out, with, the participants. And now I'm going to turn it over to, Tarik to talk to us about how the exercise was, organized and set up and carried out, by the, team there at, APL. Thank you so much, Stanley. I'm happy to talk about this exercise. If I bring up the next chart, please, to get started.

So you've heard now a lot about this scenario that, Lindley spoke about in the context of these exercises overall. And le this specific exercise had four objectives. And the first was to raise awareness in the interagency, but also internationally about the hazards posed by asteroids and comets and some of the complexities associated with responding or preparing to respond to that kind of threat. But we're also looking at collaborative international space response. So how would international partners come together to make space missions happen in response to this type of asteroid threat?

Disaster preparedness was absolutely a component of this exercise, as was information sharing and public messaging, because ultimately, this type of threat will have to bring together air space, disaster preparedness, public messaging and information sharing. Next slide please. The exercise took place over two days, and it brought together a variety of interagency and international partners, as was shown previously, because we had people participating with all kinds of backgrounds. We will have three themes throughout the two days of the exercise international space response, disaster preparedness and information sharing, and public messaging. On the first day, as they alluded to, participants engaged in a variety of facilitated discussions about this scenario and then worked to develop courses of action that would be briefed to senior leaders on the morning of day two.

After that briefing took place, followed by a facilitated discussion about those courses of action. The days then pivoted on towards focusing on public messaging and information sharing and that disaster preparedness component. Next slide please. So here we're talking about this quick look report that has recently been put out today. But there's going to be a more complete after action report that's released.

This is an example of that cover for the report for Tabletop Exercise number four back from 2022. This report will be prepared over the summer time frame. And it's going to contain a detailed set of findings and recommendations to help us learn the lessons that we heard in the two days of the exercise, to help motivate work in the future, and potentially even drive investments to move us towards, operational planetary defense capability. Next slide, please. Now, this exercise is the first one that's taken place since NASA's Dart mission.

Dart successfully showed the world that we now have one tested technique to prevent a potential asteroid impact if the need arises. But in order to be able to use a technique like this, we need to know where the asteroids are and when they might pose a hazard. Next slide please. And that brings us to the Neo surveyor mission or near-Earth Object Surveyor. That's a telescope that NASA is developing that will do a planetary defense mission to find the asteroids that may pose a hazard to the Earth.

And this mission is currently on track for a launch in the fall of 2027. Back over to you, Charles. Thank you. With that, I will ask if any of our panelists have additional comments. Before we move on to questions from the media.

Well, one of the things I'd like to emphasize to Charles is, this was the first time that, we had international, participation represent some, other space agencies and also from the United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs, which are, some of the energies that, we work with, on a regular basis in, looking at this area of planetary defense and, certainly would be involved with us. should we have an actual, situation, that we needed to respond to? was a U. S. interagency exercise, but we invited in our international partners, to, simulate, that side of, for the activity that would need to take place.

Thank you. Any other comments before we move on? On appearing, we will transition to our phone bridge moderator to take questions from the media. If you have not done so already and would like to ask a question, press star one and you'll be put in the queue. Operator, would you please let us know who is on the line?

Thank you. Our first question comes from Jonathan Thiry with Fox News. Fox news, your line is open. Thank you so much. Thank you for doing this.

this question is probably for Tarik. in situations where you had to directly intervene, sending a spacecraft to redirect an asteroid is there a one size fits all spacecraft? In other words, could you repeat Dart for any new asteroid threat? Or if you detected a new threat, would you have to custom build a spacecraft based on the asteroid size, composition, momentum, that type of thing? Thank you.

Yes. So as Lindley showed in this particular scenario, there was a massive range of possibilities in the asteroids properties. And that's actually not unexpected when you initially first detect an object, you're going to have a lot of uncertainty. So sending a spacecraft to be able to collect information that reduces those uncertainties would be critical. every asteroid can be a little bit different.

And so you would need to develop a mission that would go to that specific asteroids location in space. But in terms of the kinds of instruments you would need and things like that, and much of that, I think would be comparable between, different asteroid threats. Excellent. Thank you. next question online, please.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Tim Burnham with payload space. Your line is open. Thank you for taking my question. I had two, if I may, a one on the Neo survey or mission.

you know, you mentioned, that was on track for launch in fall of 2027, but it says 2028 on the presentation. I'm just curious what the timing is on that and how confident we are. We're actually going to get that decade long warning that we need for this. And then just in terms of some of the gaps discussed in the final report, what I think concerns these experts most about our preparedness, what is the top gap that we need to resolve? And just after going through this, how confident do you feel that the world could respond to, threatening asteroid like this?

Thanks. Several questions there. I believe a Lindley. You could take them first and, clarify the the actual projected launch date from Neo survey first and then move on. Yes.

Yeah. the Neo surveyor project is, working to a launch readiness date of the fall of 2027. the June 28th, date is, actually the, agency's, commitment for launch no later than June of 2028. So, the project is on track for a fall of 27, launch. but, we always like to leave a little, room, to make sure that we can, be successful in our objectives.

with, the your second question, you know, what's the what's the largest, gap, that we feel that we're dealing with and, you know, what can be done, to help in that area? well, currently, our largest gap is, you know, we don't know the whole population of near-Earth asteroids that are out there. And that's why we're pursuing the Neo surveyor mission is to get a more complete catalog of, of the hazardous, population, those asteroids that are large enough that, if they were to impact the Earth, they could do, significant damage and come, come close to the Earth over time. but we're working on that, with the neo surveyor mission. try to close that gap.

you know, the second thing, that, is being worked in, you see it, and as part of this exercise is, developing the technologies, and the processes, for a rapid response, capability, reconnaissance capability, so that, even though, we may, have several years, detect the object several years before the impact, we are, prepared to get a, reconnaissance spacecraft out there as rapidly as possible to give us the critical information that we need. if we're going to try to deflect it, in space, before, it before it, could impact. I'm not sure if there was more to that question, but to ensure everyone has a chance, let's move on to the next question is, and if, reporters wanted to get back in the queue, they can certainly do so. Thank you. Our next question comes from Nell Greenfieldboyce with NPR.

Your line is open. Oh, hey, I hope you all can hear me. This question is for, Lindley Johnson. this scenario was a little different in how it was structured. You know, it sort of paused at one moment to look at how, how, you know, these these recommendations would be formulated and how they might be received.

I wanted to ask you about the role of money, in the in the quick look report, there's a couple of references to money not being available or Congress not wanting to allocate money until it was a sure risk. I mean, could you talk about that aspect of the exercise and how it's similar or different from past exercises? Thank you. Well, yeah. So, in this exercise of, we oh, wanted to examine the processes by which we would come together, both, interagency and international, to decide, you know, what is the right course of action, given given the circumstances.

and, as we've discussed, getting as rapid a look at a more detailed picture of the asteroid, and its physical, characteristics, is extremely important, but, but that, of course, takes money. in the normal course of budgeting, that is a very difficult, thing to do. And starting new projects, new programs, trying to find the space in the budget, to, given everything else, that is being done, to start, start a new mission, and, and so, but part of it is, doing the right, job in, in, informing people, being able to provide them the, Perception, necessary perception of how serious the threat really is. And so that's part of what this exercise is about. was, how do we, faithfully, inform our leadership, and, and Congress and others about the seriousness of this, this particular situation so that, the their decisions about, funding and how to, adequately support a response can be made.

Thank you. And again, let me, remind the reporters who are online that if you want to ask a question or circle back, press star One on your phone, and I will now come back to our phone bridge moderator to, get the next question. Thank you. Our next question comes from Marcia Smith with Space Policy online. com.

Thanks so much. I was wondering if, maybe Lee or any of you could talk about the international response. What is it that the international participants are worried about, or are they worried about how you're all going to coordinate across the globe? Are they worried about their own countries? Where do you see their particular focus?

Well, our target, first, Marcia, the, over the years, in working, through the United Nations, Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, which the, the U. N. Office of Outer Space Affairs is, is, secretariat or organizer of, we've built up a pretty good relationship with a lot of the other, national space agencies, and, have, come to, under understanding, between us about how, we could respond to, such a worldwide, threat, and, the kind of, of, conversations, that, that need to take place. I think, one of the things that we all feel and, certainly our international partners feel the importance of it being a, international, coalition, response to, such a situation that, One nation, no matter, how adequate, their space capabilities are, isn't trying to, go it alone, that, the both the, capabilities and, and, the, concerns, of other nations, are, also taken into account as we, craft a worldwide response to a worldwide hazard. Thank you.

Do any of the other panelists have any comments about that particular question as well? Before we move on to the next one, I think, from the international disaster response, aspect of it, we've talked about this in very broad terms before. In previous international, that, a Planetary Defense conference sponsored by the International Academy Astronautics, for instance, in 2023, a conference we had in Vienna at the U. N. , we did begin to discuss, what are the international complications for responding on the ground to a large impactor that could affect a very, very significant portion of the Earth, maybe multiple nations.

You'll recall here in the United States where, under the national response framework, we all use an asteroid instead. Management system. There's no equivalent system for that. Internationally. The U.

N. Office of Disaster Response and Affairs, they do have procedures to be found responding to tsunamis and other big events. But for an asteroid impact, we're thinking the scale of it is going to be such that we actually do need to discuss at this time what we what it would take for an international response on such a large scale. Right? Moving people from state to state, of course, to your relatives and other state is not really, a large problem.

But if you talk about multiple nations and people having to move around and responding to a very large area, that could be a challenge. So the the challenge now to actually start discussing is that we need to organize and start discussing what would really take to coordinate a large effort and who would be in charge, what organization, how would we set it up? Would it be the UN? Would it be a combination of international organizations? How would we actually accomplish that?

So that's the new challenge. One. Thank you. Thought is that, Lindsay and Ella both addressed, you know, the space missions aspect, the disaster aspect. Yeah, the international component really well across the two days.

And one of the things that struck me was that it really at every juncture, there was such a strong support for international collaboration for this international issue. And frankly, I found that as a hopeful, kind of inspiring thing to see that kind of support for collaboration internationally. Thank you. Let's go back to our, online moderator to see the next question. Please.

Thank you. Our next question comes from was that Ortega with The Washington Post? Your line is open. Hi, everyone. my question was just maybe you all could give us a bit of insight into the more difficult parts of the exercise.

you mentioned that there was a hopeful tone of collaboration, which is amazing to hear, but where there may be some harder discussion, things that stuck with you. Thank you. Let's, just come down the line. Lindley, would you like to address that first? Well, I think, it's sort of been alluded to already is, the decision to act, as we call it, is, you know, providing the right, information, and the and the and the right, characterization of the situation, that, a decision, to, go do something, or not, as the case, as the prudent case may be, is, one of the things that we always, kind of worry about whether, we will, be able to, gather, enough support, coalition, if you will, to, go do what needs to be done.

You know, in this case, you know, starting the efforts, for, a reconnaissance, of the asteroid, even though we're, still 14 years away. but we are, examining, how long it takes to pull a mission together. the flight time it takes to get to the asteroid, and, the launch windows that are available, to get to the asteroid, that eats up, a decade of time, pretty fast. So, that is certainly, concern looking at it from the, technical, technological standpoint. LA do you have any comments on that, question of the, yes.

We can't take it out. Thank you. Charles. one of the more interesting aspects when we really, invited our international colleagues this time was, as you saw on this exercise, we have we've done exercises for six months. A lot easier to plan for 14 years.

Well, for emergency managers, disaster responders, 14 years is a long time. So we thought the first thing was, wait. Well, we're not waiting because we're not concerned with the situation is that emergency manager disaster responders are working every day. There's always something happen. There's going to be something happening all the way up until impacts.

So figuring out where to put your resources to start work around this specific problem while still dealing with tornadoes and hurricanes, etc. , etc. it's going to be a particular challenge. And the second part, as I alluded to earlier, was who would be in charge of how do you get together the international aspect of it? If you have a lot of time, maybe the UN is the right place, but it may not necessarily be under the Office of Space Affairs.

So that's the biggest challenge for us right now, is figuring out where that starts, when you start the effort and what it will take to coordinate such a large effort. Terry, do you have anything to add a couple of thoughts. One is that the kinds of things that, Lee and L. A. I've mentioned have things in the quick look.

They really point to the need to have this continual series of exercises, because each one is a learning experience. You know, you take a stab at what communication might look like and what the issues that might come up. Try to frame a discussion there. You'll learn something as a result, and then you feed forward to the future. You tweak things as you go.

So each of these, I think is a learning experience, both for the planetary defense sort of subject matter experts as well as for those who are not, you know, living and breathing that field in this two way exchange or multi-dimensional exchange. over time, I think that just helps us move the needle as we kind of trial and error practice how we communicate and convey these issues. To Lin Lee's point, you know, move us kind of in a direction where appropriate decisions can be made. Thank you. do we have another question on the line for our panelists?

Yes. Thank you. Our next question comes from Ramakrishnan with The Associated Press. Your line is open. Hi.

Thank you all so much. my question has to do with potential future iterations of this exercise and what they might look like. you mentioned that the previous one was looking more like short warning threats in this one. Maybe looking at this a little bit more lead time. And I'm curious if there are other scenarios that, you either have in mind to potentially explore or things that we're learning from this iteration that might be interesting to explore when we're looking at this moving forward.

Well, certainly, our start. Charles, I'll maybe, chime in then. as you said, there's a variety of, things that we've exercised, and, our, exercise scenario team, have all kinds of, knobs. They like to turn and, and, you know, different uncertainties, to add into scenario and, and, areas of, different areas on the earth, that, that could an under fold, this hazard, you know, so there's a, you know, potentially an unlimited number of scenarios to, to exercise here. But what we do is we're take a look at, you know what are the, outcomes, keycaps, that are identified in this particular exercise.

And then we're try to, craft, the next exercise, in such a way that it, forces us to, address, some of those outstanding issues and gaps. so we don't, have a, specific scenario in mind yet. but, we will take the, after action report from this one and then then begin to, talk, amongst our community here to, determine, so what do we want to take on next time? What what area do we need to poke at, to improve either the, the process or the decision making, to put ourselves in a better position of readiness. as we like to say in the exercise, community, you know, the the actual plan, the, specific exercise, results, are, you know, aren't really anything.

It's the actual going through the process of doing the planning and working together, communicating and and, working with each other. That is the real purpose of these exercises. Okay. Do you have any comments on what next to expect from the tabletop exercises? Yeah.

Thank you. Charles. One of the ideas, we discussed with our, State Department colleagues in the Office of Space Affairs and with, some my colleagues in international disaster sports is that we may want to sit down to have a tabletop that exclusively talks about the disaster response part, because there are other organizations that literally could tell you about they have, working groups that work worked on some of the technical aspects in the space aspects of this particular problem. But we have really concentrated on the disaster aspects of it, not for this specific axis, this specific scenario. And that's different enough.

That would take some effort for us to really sit down as a group and start talking about this specific scenario, an asteroid or comet impact and start working through the details. Maybe. So maybe one of the ideas and refuses to have a separate tabletop with just a disaster responders to kind of talk about this specific scenario, because it's so rare and so different that we would maybe need to spend a little bit more time preparing for it. So that's a consideration for the future. You, Kirk, do you have anything to add to that discussion?

Not at this time. Fantastic. All right. Let's go back and see. if our, online moderator has any additional questions for the panel.

Yes. Thank you. Our next question comes from Ken Burns with payload space. Your line is open. Hello again.

Thank you for letting me get another bite at the apple. question. One of the things that a lot of the comments in the report mentioned are concerns about Congress or political decision making or time. And I'm curious if any former lawmakers or like non-technical policy people were involved in this and if that is maybe something you'd like to do in the future. And I'm wondering if you can share any color on, like the senior leader briefing module of the exercise.

Who was involved in that? What does that scenario look like? Thank you. Well, that, that is an interesting idea that, maybe we could involve, more of a political leadership, congressional staffers perhaps, or something. And, in a future exercise.

but, in this particular exercise, though, we did have, some, senior leaders, both within, and the NASA space agency, the, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, was, part of the, leadership panel, as, LA can tell you, the, deputy administrator of, FEMA, participated in the panel, internationally, we had the director of the United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs, on that, on that panel, also, some senior, officers, of, and, U. S. space Command, participated and, some folks, from the, from the white House, the National Security and National Space Council, we're we're person. Well, so who am I? Who am I forgetting?

I think it's, important also learned that we did include, some of the science community, involved. We also had, for the first time, a representatives from the, U. S. agency for International Development involved, in the exercise, which is, was a great addition, brought us, a whole different aspect of, what was going on. We had a representative from the US Geological Survey.

We try to get other agencies that were participate that you wouldn't normally think would be involved in this scenario, but they all brought different points of view, and also this time a big emphasis that maybe Terry could give a few more details on it. And having the communicators, our public affairs officials, with us on these exercises, because part of the whole thing is going to be messaging. What do you say? How do you make sure that people believe what we're saying and we don't have, issues with, incorrect news or fake news or whatever you want to call it, how that would interfere with us moving forward, getting the right things done. So, that aspect, I think we are getting better with, expanding the population of people.

But one of the reasons that we try to keep it, more controlled so that we don't go off on a tangent because, I mean, there was a lively discussion to talk about what happens when we start doing things on the moon and who's going to meet in charge of emergency management so you can get off on a tangent. So trying to make sure that we had the right people, for this exercise is a good way for us to keep moving forward for this scenario. And I like just to sort of build on that in terms of discussions, the potential to engine side, it's one of the reasons it's important to identify these objectives for the exercise pretty early on and then figure out, you know, who are the people to involved and in the exercise to move the discussion on, to, to reach those objectives. you mentioned communications, and it was wonderful to have, communications experts from FEMA, from NASA, from other agencies, to really clarify, you know, what is it that people would want to know? When would they want to know what?

How can we communicate that in an effective way? And going forward, I hope we have more of that, because ultimately, if you know, the technical experts can't adequately convey the urgency and the hazard and the potential courses of action, then whatever briefing or information you're giving has a somewhat limited value. If it's not driving, people towards that action to help them understand, what the options are and what they can do in response. So communications, I think was a critical theme to have and I think lots of lessons learned on that front. And we continue it for this briefing.

Yes, indeed. Excellent point. And in that vein, we have time for one more question. I will ask the, phone for each moderator if we have anyone with, a final question for the panel. Yes.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Marcia Smith with Space Policy online. com. Your line is open. Thanks so much for letting me ask a second question.

And it's actually a two part question again about the international aspect of this. And so I'm wondering literally if you have any update on efforts to try and get a spacecraft to office before it gets here? I know that NASA has funding challenges to do that, but is there any indication that the international community is going to come together and find a way to do that? And, secondly, I know that you are now the planetary defense officer emeritus. you were the first one.

And I'm curious, do other countries have their own planetary defense officers now? And so are they all in space agencies or in other parts of the government? well, a couple of questions there, a sort of off topic. but to the to the first one. yes.

Our, talks with, other national space agencies and and around the community are, are, yielding, some results. the European Space Agency is, very active in, initiating, a, Apophis, reconnaissance mission, pre Earth encounter, reconnaissance mission. now, here at NASA, we have, approved a extended mission for the Saber's, Rex, spacecraft, because it can reach, the pufferfish, asteroid, shortly after, the closest, approach to the your, and so a post, close encounter, characterization of the asteroid, is, you know, very much in hand with the the cyber, apex mission, but, both for scientific, purposes, and, for demonstration of planetary defense capabilities. we want to be able to get a spacecraft out there, weeks to months, to, get a look at, Apophis, before that, that close encounter, with the Earth, because, you know, first of all, demonstrates a capability to do that for planetary defense, but also gives the scientists the before picture, of asteroid, purpose, so that we can see what changes, were made by the close encounter, with the Earth, but, European Space Agency, is pursuing a, mission. That would be a rebuild of the Harris spacecraft.

the Harris spacecraft, is, is, getting prepared to launch it this fall to go back to Didymos, to do a post, dart, assessment of the demo system, so that, was the, most, capable way of, of them, providing a, profes, reconnaissance mission. so, this, mission called Ramses is, being, pursued. And, they've invited international participation, to that, mission. us, jets. just Japanese space agency are definitely partners in that.

here at NASA. we're continuing to to look at, possibly a, repurpose of the, Jannis, spacecraft, simplex mission that didn't get to go on a ride, with, with psyche. and, there are other, countries, as well, particularly the, Korean, green space, agency, that, is, looking at what they, what kind of mission they might be able to do, albeit, small spacecraft or something like that. But it all demonstrates, this idea of a, a rapid, reconnaissance, demonstration. in fact, you know, the question of, planetary defense officer.

Yeah, I'm I'm starting, my, phasing, into, retirement. Kelly fast is, now the acting planetary defense officer here at, NASA and, but, but, yes, there are planetary defense officers now, the European Space Agency, has run their own planetary defense program, which they, have under their space safety, program. the, Japanese space agency is, now, in the process of setting up a planetary defense, office, amongst their, small body, science, efforts. So, the, so although, there's not too many other, planetary defense officers yet, I would expect, about every space agency, in the future, we'll probably have somebody that has that at least as an additional duty. Okay.

Well, that is about all the time we have today. If, some of the journalists so watching or online have additional questions, you can contact us directly. The associated news release is available at nasa. gov/news. Thank you so much for joining us.

Also, the quick book report is published and can be found at nasa. gov/reports. Go planetary defense.

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