Engineers on NASA's NEOWISE (Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) mission commanded the spacecraft to turn its transmitter off for the last time Thursday. This concludes more than 10 years of its planetary defense mission to search for asteroids and comets, including those that could pose a threat to Earth.
The final command was sent from the Earth Orbiting Missions Operation Center at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, with mission members past and present in attendance alongside officials from the agency's headquarters in Washington. NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System then relayed the signal to NEOWISE, decommissioning the spacecraft. As NASA previously shared, the spacecraft's science survey ended on July 31, and all remaining science data was downlinked from the spacecraft.
"The NEOWISE mission has been an extraordinary success story as it helped us better understand our place in the universe by tracking asteroids and comets that could be hazardous for us on Earth," said Nicola Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. "While we are sad to see this brave mission come to an end, we are excited for the future scientific discoveries it has opened by setting the foundation for the next generation planetary defense telescope."
