Objectives. The mission accessible near-earth object survey or manos began in late 2013 as a physical characterization survey of newly discovered, sub-KM, low delta-v neos. With ~100 new neos being…

This federal contract award to Lowell Observatory, a private non-profit research institution, provides $1,126,372 in funding from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to continue the Mission Accessible Near-Earth Object Survey (MANOS) program over the next three years. The MANOS program, which began in 2013, is designed to physically characterize newly discovered, small near-Earth objects (NEOs) that are accessible to spacecraft. The objectives of this follow-on effort include rapidly characterizing newly discovered NEOs, expanding the dataset on the diversity of NEO physical properties, and enhancing spectroscopic capabilities to better understand NEO composition. This contract does not have a set-aside designation and runs through March 19, 2022. As the prime contractor, Lowell Observatory will leverage its astronomical facilities and partnerships with other observatories to achieve the program's goals, which support NASA's efforts to assess asteroid impact hazards and identify potential spacecraft targets in near-Earth space.

Objectives. The mission accessible near-earth object survey or manos began in late 2013 as a physical characterization survey of newly discovered, sub-KM, low delta-v neos. With ~100 new neos being discovered monthly these criteria provide clear selection criteria for studying only the most interesting objects. Manos is able to characterize about 10% of new discoveries, which are selected to be amongst the most spacecraft accessible bodies in near-earth space. Our approach is to build a comprehensive data set of astrometry, photometry and spectroscopy through queue, remote and target of opportunity observations. We propose a second generation manos that will continue this important work while building upon the successes of the initial survey. We will focus on the following objectives over the next three years: - establish a system for rapid coarse characterization observations (e.g. sparse lightcurves and colors) of newly discovered neos on small aperture telescopes to inform more detailed follow-up on larger facilities. - employ a unique suite of telescopic assets to continue building an unprecedented dataset for probing the diversity of physical properties in the near-earth object population. - expand on the first generation manos survey with new spectroscopic capabilities that will provide deeper insight into the compositional distribution of neos. - follow-up unexpected results from the first generation survey, including an attempt to better understand the role of planetary encounters in modifying NEO properties and a probe of compositional links between small neos and meteorites. - continue to build a network of telescopic facilities and observers to serve as infrastructure in the event of time critical observations such as the discovery of an impacting asteroid (e.g. 2008 TC3). In total the next generation manos will contribute to a large, uniform catalog of NEO physical properties that will have implications for understanding formative and evolutionary processes in the solar system, for informing accurate impact hazard assessment, and for identifying the most viable spacecraft targets in near-earth space. Methodology. Our approach in conducting this survey will leverage experience gained through our first generation survey. This includes observing protocols for challenging targets that can be faint and moving at high non-sidereal rates, and the use of fully developed reduction and analysis pipelines. We plan to continue the use of noao facilities (gemini north and south, soar 4M, kitt peak 4M) and facilities at lowell observatory including the 4.3M discovery channel telescope. We will expand our efforts to include the use of spex+moris at NASA s irtf as well as coordinating with ongoing photometric surveys at several smaller telescopes. This suite of facilities will be used to obtain visible images for astrometry and light curve photometry, visible spectra, and near-IR spectra. We will target objects with diameters