British asteroid mapper sent into orbit

UK technology that can create thermal maps of asteroids, giving us vital information about how their trajectories might change, is about to undergo trials in space. The Compact Modular Sounder instrument, built by researchers at Oxford University and the Science and Technology Facilities Council RAL Space facility, was launched on 8 July 2014, at around 17:00 BST, as part of the spacecraft TechDemoSat-1. The spacecraft was blasted into Earth orbit aboard a Soyuz-2 rocket taking off from a launch site in Kazakhstan. The size of a shoebox and weighing just 4.5kg, Compact Modular Sounder (CMS) is designed to do the job of a much bigger, heavier instrument at a fraction of the cost. The eventual aim of the scientists behind the project is to send CMS into deep space to use its infrared technology to create thermal maps of the surface of a Near Earth Asteroid. 'Imagine that an asteroid is detected on a possible collision course with Earth, with enough time that we have options to deal with it. One of the most important things we need to know is how its orbit might change with time: will it hit us or just fly by? If it looks like it could hit us what could we do about it?' said Dr Neil Bowles of Oxford University's Department of Physics, a member of the Oxford team that built CMS.