This project is not yet part of the approved and implemented Federal Space Program till 2025.

Russia is developing a promising space project to detect and calculate the trajectories of dangerous asteroids and comets approaching the Earth from the directions inaccessible to ground-based control points. This was reported to TASS by experts of the TsNIIMash, the head scientific institute of the Roscosmos state corporation.

"Research developments should become the basis for future experimental engineering activity, which must pass a mandatory competitive selection by the Space Council of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Roscosmos," the developers reported.

According to them, the matter is under consideration in cooperation with other interested organizations. However, at the moment this project is not part of the approved and implemented Federal Space Program till 2025.

Earlier it was reported that Russian scientists suggested launching the telescope to the so-called Lagrange point L1 (the zone where the device will remain steady relative to the Earth-Sun system). At the 1.5 million kilometer distance from the Earth the telescope would observe the asteroids approaching the Earth from the side of the Sun. Optical telescopes are blind in this situation. However, to detect a cosmic body larger than 10 m, a small (30 cm diameter) telescope will have to be delivered to this point. The project was named the Daytime Asteroids Detection System.

In addition, TsNIIMash reports that it continues work on the development of an automated warning system for dangerous situations in the near-Earth space. It tracks, first and foremost, operating spacecraft and space debris and warns the authorities in charge about the risk of collision at the Earth's orbit. The institute experts explain that the system is able to observe asteroids and comets, and thus closely interacts with the scientific network of optical instruments for astrometric and photometric observations of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

As reported, the challenges of detecting and tracking potentially dangerous celestial bodies, as well as the methods of counteracting this danger will be considered at the international conference Near-Earth Astronomy. It is going to be held in Russia under the patronage of the Astronomy Institute, RAS this year.

The Watch System

Russia will start engineering the system for detecting asteroids dangerous for the Earth in 2019, the scientific director of the Astronomy Institute, Boris Shustov said. "Under the Roscosmos program The Watch, the start of real works on counteracting the asteroid-comet hazard through detecting dangerous celestial bodies of natural is scheduled for 2019”, - he said.

Roscosmos has not commented on this project. However, Boris Shustov's report at the Space Council, RAS states that the Watch project is a significant step towards the creation of the Russian system to counter space threats, which is aimed at solving the task of detecting and warning of space threats. The document notes that this is not a separate project, but a system that integrates research and development works in this field already included in the Federal Space Program for 2016-2025.

The Watch is also aimed at cooperating efforts in the detection of dangerous celestial bodies by Roscosmos, the Ministry of Defense and the Russian Academy of Sciences.

In 2016, the UN General Assembly proclaimed June 30 to be the International Asteroid Day. The date falls on the anniversary of the Tunguska phenomenon, which happened over Siberia on June 30, 1908. The main events timed to this date in Russia were held at the Moscow Planetarium, where Boris Shustov gave a lecture on the asteroid-comet hazard.