NASA To Reactivate Retired WISE Telescope To Hunt For Near-Earth Dangerous Asteroids [VIDEO]

NASA announced that the hibernating Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer, which is popularly known as the WISE spacecraft, will be reactivated to serve as one of the main spacecrafts for NASA's asteroid-hunting mission.

According to the official press release of NASA, the WISE spacecraft, which was placed in hibernation for more than three years, will be called back into service to hunt for potentially-dangerous near-earth asteroids.

"The WISE mission achieved its mission's goals and as NEOWISE extended the science even further in its survey of asteroids. NASA is now extending that record of success, which will enhance our ability to find potentially hazardous asteroids, and support the new asteroid initiative," said NASA associate administrator for science John Grunsfeld. "Reactivating WISE is an excellent example of how we are leveraging existing capabilities across the agency to achieve our goal."

WISE will use its 16-inch telescope and infrared cameras to look for unidentified near-earth objects. It will play a major role in NASA's asteroid initiative. The agency launched the asteroid initiative to identify and capture an asteroid as part of US President Barack Obama's goal of sending astronauts to an asteroid by 2025.

As part of the extended NEOWISE mission, the WISE spacecraft scanned the entire celestial sky when it was launched in 2009 to search for the coolest stars and luminous galaxies in the universe. In 2010, around 58,000 rocky bodies were observed, which led to the discovery of more than 34,000 asteroids and 21 comets.

"The team is ready and after a quick checkout, we're going to hit the ground running. NEOWISE not only gives us a better understanding of the asteroids and comets we study directly, but it will help us refine our concepts and mission operation plans for future, space-based near-Earth object cataloging missions," said Amy Mainzer, the principal NEOWISE investigator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Before it was placed into hibernation two years ago, the spacecraft captured more than 2.7 millions images and cataloged around 560 million space objects. NASA expects that the WISE will locate around 150 new unidentified objects and characterized properties of more than 2,000 space objects.