NASA will reactive a mothballed infrared telescope for a three-year mission to look for dangerous asteroids that could be headed for Earth.
The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) telescope will also be looking for targets for other missions to send robotic spacecrafts and "relocate all or part of it into a high orbit around the moon" according to Reuters.
Scientists have cataloged over 560 million objects using WISE.
"After a quick checkout, we're going to hit the ground running," WISE astronomer Amy Mainzer, with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, said in a press statement.
NASA said that the WISE telescope spent 13 months looking for "telltale infrared signs of stars, distant galaxies, and asteroids too dim to radiate in visible light" according to Reuters.
Astronauts will then visit the moved astronaut during a test flight of NASA's deep-space Orion capsule.
NASA has found approximately 95 percent of the asteroids that could pose a problem for Earth eventually. The space rocks located by NASA are .62 miles or larger in diameter according to NASA.
The capsule is scheduled to launch around 2021 according to NASA. Orion and the Space Launch System rocket are set for an unmanned test flight four years from now.
NASA will send $3 billion a year for the Space Launch System and Orion development.
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