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Astronomers at the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy have been awarded a $3.4 million grant by the Air Force Research Laboratories to design a new observatory to survey the entire sky and detect very faint objects. The Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) will be an array of small telescopes which will be capable of scanning an area of the sky 40 times the size of Moon in one go. A major goal of the project is to identify and track asteroids that might collide with Earth including smaller, less hazardous NEOs.
Planned to become operational in 2006, Pan-STARRS will be more powerful for survey work than all existing telescopes combined and is broadly similar to the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) which will produce weekly full-sky maps of faint objects. Pan-STARRS differs from LSST in that it will consist of an array of small telescopes where as the latter will be the largest telescope yet constructed. Both would contribute significantly to the discovery and tracking of NEOs.
The U.S. Air Force (USAF) has provided much support for NEO surveys and the current NEO survey programmes make use of USAF telescopes. The USAF space command, located in the Cheyenne Mountains, currently tracks artifical space debris in Earth orbit to protect satellites and spacecraft. Brigadier General Simon Worden of Space Command has suggested that the USAF could also play a role in co-ordinating NEO searches and evaluating collision hazards.
More info: University of Hawaii
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