UND receives $437,000 from NASA for Near-Earth Object Program NASA has awarded the Department of Space Studies a three-year grant for $437,000 to support advanced research within NASA’s Near-Earth Object Observations (NEOO) program. In 2004, Space Studies was awarded a grant from NASA to provide proof of concept of an advanced technique for investigating near-Earth objects (NEO). The new larger grant will provide support to obtain detailed characterizations of the surface compositions of NEOs. Such information will be used to investigate the early history of the solar system. It will also be used to plan mitigation strategies for NEOs that will potentially impact the Earth. The NEOO Program is a part of NASA’s planetary protection effort. The team involved in NEO research program includes Mike Gaffey (Space Studies’ interim chair), Paul Hardersen (assistant professor, Space Studies), Paul Abell (former Space Studies graduate and current NASA employee), Faith Vilas (director of the Multi-Mirror Telescope Observatory in Arizona), and Sherry Fieber-Beyer and Vishnu Reddy (two current Space Studies graduate students). -- Karen Ryba, director of communications, aerospace, ryba@aero.und.edu, 777-4761