Merging the Minor Planet Center within the Planetary Data ... · Planetary Sciences Division...

Merging the Minor Planet Center within the Planetary

Data System

J. Bauer (UMD, PDS SBN PI), M. Holman (Harvard CfA, MPC Director)

PDS Management Council, August 29, 2017

The Minor Planet Center

•  The MPC is the world’s nerve center for minor planet and comet observations.

•  The MPC collects, processes, distributes all positional measurements, orbits, and discovery information for all minor planets and comets (and some natural satellites too).

•  The MPC alerts elements of the International Asteroid Warning Network of any potential for impact by newly discovered NEOs.

•  The MPC helps coordinate worldwide observers.


MPC Organization • MPC is hosted by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA).

• MPC Director reports to SAO’s Associate Director for Solar, Stellar, and Planetary Sciences Division (Andrew Szentgyorgyi) and the CfA’s Director (Charles Alcock). •  Sanctioned as the small bodies astrometrics central node by the International Astronomical Union (IAU).

• Operational reporting of hazardous NEO discoveries to the Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO), NASA HQ. • MPC has become a functional sub-node of the Small Bodies Node of the NASA Planetary Data System.

•  The SBN serves as intermediary between the direction of NASA Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) and the MPC.

•  The MPC has been funded 100% by NASA’s Near Earth Object Observations (NEOO) program since 2008, now managed through the PDCO, through early 2017. Is now funded via a sub-award from U Maryland.

3 PDS Management Council, August 29, 2017

•  Keep up with NEO discoveries and orbits in real time, as required by NASA. •  Maintain the NEO Confirmation Page to facilitate coordination of NEO follow-up observations. (50-100 unique objects posted each night) •  Warn of NEOs coming within 6 Earth Radii within 6 months. For the MPC, the time horizon is more like 6 days because of discovery circumstances. •  Identify NEOs from observations of mostly Main Belt Asteroids (which account for >99% of incoming observations) because NEOs can have MBA-like motions. (An “observation” means a single astrometric measurement.) •  Process ~2 million new observations reported each month. MPC database currently holds ~170 million observations. •  Maintain and provide access to database of more than 700,000 objects with known orbits (~500,000 are numbered, i.e., have highest quality orbits). •  Process observations from any and all sources (~200 active observatory codes/year from ground-based optical and radar, and space-based IR data). The bulk of observations come from just a few large surveys: Catalina Sky Survey + Mt. Lemmon Survey, Pan-STARRS, and NEOWISE (space-based). •  Designate new asteroid discoveries.

Roles and Responsibilities


•  Maintain digest2 tracklet classification code (a test of NEO candidacy).

•  Archive the MPC data with the Planetary Data System.

•  Prepare for increased data flow expected from the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) and possible future space-based surveys, like NEOCam.

•  Interact with MPC user base of astronomers through online and phone communications, conferences, workshops, etc.

•  Interact with the public through interviews (TV, radio) and other outreach channels.

•  Exploit modern media outlets for communication and EPO.

Roles and Responsibilities



2015 Review

•  In January of 2015, the NEO Observations program requested a review panel to conduct an independent assessment of the organization and performance of the MPC as hosted by SAO/CfA. The panel was comprised of several regular users of the MPC’s services and was chaired by Don Yeomans, the former manager of the NEO Program Office.

•  The Panel members convened in Early May and released their findings in July.

MPC Review Key Recommendations

• New MPC staff members should be added to reduce the extensive (and excessive) work hours put in by some of the current MPC staff.

•  The MPC does not employ ITAR controlled items and should not be encumbered by ITAR restrictions. •  The MPC should separate its critical processes from routine CfA IT support as much as possible.

•  To the extent possible, the MPC should have 24/7 functionality to respond to potential near-term Earth impactors. It should however be noted that this does not imply 24/7 staffing of the center. • MPC employees should be allowed some staggered work periods and remote work sites to provide additional MPC staff coverage for each day.

These recommendations must be implemented without disruption to on-going MPC activities/responsibilities.


Cooperative Agreement Rationale •  Establish a direct collaboration between the Minor Planet Center (MPC), at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) under a NASA award issued by the PDCO, and the Small Bodies Node (SBN) of NASA’s Planetary Data System (PDS).

•  Ensure that the critical work of the MPC is intimately tied into NASA’s long term archive of planetary data. •  Provide a closer tie between the dynamical results of the MPC and the physical results archived at the Small Bodies Node, noting that SBN uses the dynamical results and conversely MPC receives physical data as a byproduct of its normal operations.

•  Current emphasis of the NEO Observation program is completing the congressionally mandated survey of NEOs. Both dynamical and physical data are critical for the larger program of hazard mitigation. •  A Cooperative Agreement is more appropriate for the MPC than an award since the MPC is funded as a critical component of the infrastructure for the PDCO. Thus it should be guided more closely by NASA than is appropriate under an award.


Cooperative Agreement Rationale !  Interim Director Holman would become Director.

!  Flexible hours would be reintroduced. !  MPC computers at Cambridge Discovery Park would be moved to a

computer collocation center.

!  Hardware would be deployed to Smithsonian’s Herndon Data Center. !  The efforts to develop a new data processing pipeline would continue.

!  The MPC would immediately begin hiring new staff.

!  The CfA would provide office space for the newly hired staff. !  The MPC would focus on its core mission, namely the processing of

incoming observations to support work of the NEO surveys for the immediate future.


UMD Hirings

•  In addition to utilizing existing SBN staff in distributed tasks, the staff at the SBN, U of Md, will be increased by a full-time manager/scientist (Co-lead SBN) and a science programmer. The first is completed, and the search is underway for the second (AAS Job Reg., AAPT, PEN, DPS Jobs Bulletin Board, etc.). The unfortunate loss of the PI Mike A’Hearn means the new scientist has had to step up to the PI role on a short time scale.


Recent Progress • Relocation of backup data center to the CfA colocation facility (decreasing CfA IT dependencies).

•  Promotion and more competitive Salary.

•  MPC code in BitBucket repository.

•  New pipeline, with several existing modules migrated, and cross training of staff has begun.

•  IAU has transferred responsibility of comets, satellites, TNOs, and other solar system bodies CBAT to the MPC.

•  The hardware on which the MPC pipeline processing is run transferred to the Smithsonian computing facility in Herndon, VA, with CfA back-up. Plans are in progress to move to a cloud-computing model; completion of pipeline migration/development from outdated machines and primitive code is a key part of this.


Recent Progress

•  MPC Users Group constituted… first meeting was June 22-23rd.

•  MUG bi-annual meetings has been set (next meeting 12/18/2017). Charge document drafted and nearly finalized.

•  Schedule for implementation of a new reporting standard has been set. MPC should be capable of receiving new format by the end of this month.

•  Evaluation of UMD IT/programmer hire applications (due 8/25/2017) is underway.

•  Announcements are drafted for the additional MPC positions, and are being reviewed.


MPC Developments

• Developing new data processing pipeline to cope with expected data flow increase over the next ~10 years with improved automation and robustness.

• New Astronomy Data Exchange Standard (ADES) observation format. Developed from a meeting at SAO in May 2015, led by Steve Chesley.

• Moved primary computing to the Smithsonian’s Herndon Data Center. The MPC is exploring how to move to cloud computing after the development and implementation of the new pipeline.


Short Term Priorities •  Complete Implementation of new reporting format.

•  Continue with New pipeline development.

•  Complete hirings, implement cross trainings and eliminate all possible single-point failures in personnel.

•  Regularly Archive Pipeline code and database to PDS. •  Code and database should comply with PDS4 format specifications •  Implement SBN governed change-control and version control for the MPC software (New Pipeline development facilitates this).

•  Transfer operations to cloud computing.

•  Cross-coordinate complementary resources btw SBN and MPC.


Short Term Priorities •  Develop metrics for MPC oversight:

•  Indicate diagnostic changes in quality of MPC products. •  NOT intended to drive goals, but to indicate where sudden problems may develop. •  Metrics must be internal, not externally dependent (e.g. dependent on community response to postings, etc., which may vary with observing conditions). •  includes tracking of which detections are utilized for the orbit solutions of particular objects. •  others may include:

1.  Processing time for submissions by dynamical class 2.  Up--time performance and documentation of reasons

for down--time 3.  Logging of reasons for instances of significant

performance degradation


Short Term Milestones (notional)

•  MPC metrics in-place by Early 2018.

•  New hires at UMD and MPC by end-of-year.

•  Upgrade of pipeline: -  Migration of present code by end of Calendar year. -  Full functionality, with desired real-time features (linking and

automated updates to NEOCP, for example) by June 2018, at least in prototype.

•  New Reporting Format: -  Receiving format by Sep. 1, 2017. -  Integrating features afforded by the new format by end of

calendar year.


Backup Slides

DIGEST2 • Digest2 is a tracklet classifier that outputs a likelihood the tracklet corresponds to an orbit classification of interest, e.g., a NEO. (~2,000 lines of code for C version.) • Tracklet classification is an essential capability for the NEOCP, on the critical path for the MPC's primary funded task. • The MPC applies digest2 to all submitted candidates for the NEOCP and posts all objects scoring above a threshold. • This automatic process replaces some, but not all, manual processes. The fixed threshold avoids oversights and misjudgments. • The algorithm is a statistical ranging algorithm. • Source code is publicly available.


Other Developments NEOCP to be more automated

Linking to be improved

Frequent calculations to be sped up: Incorporating faster n-body integrators into MPC operations.

Making MPChecker much, much faster.

Working on Chebyshev interpolation tables of MPs with fairly well defined orbits to significantly speed up a number of frequent calculations.

Building tools for rapid stellar blend identification.

MPC is hiring: We hired a new software developer (Ian Boardman). We hired a Project Scientist (Matt Payne). We hired an Astronomer (Peter Veres). We will hire three more people in the coming years.


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