The achievements of the NEOShield project and the promise of NEOShield-2

Abstract

In 2011 the European Commission issued a call for proposals, as part of its seventh research Framework Program (FP7), for projects to address the near-Earth object (NEO) impact hazard and feasible mitigation measures. The NEOShield project, proposed by a consortium of 13 partner organizations from academia and industry, received funding for 3.5 years from January 2012 (Harris et al., 2013). A similar call for proposals was issued by the European Commission in the framework of its Horizon 2020 program in December 2013, resulting in the granting of funding for the 11-partner NEOShield-2 project for 2.5 years from March 2015. The organizations involved in both projects are listed in Table 1. We report on the significant results and experience of NEOShield, drawing to an end at the time of this conference, and the plans and expectations for NEOShield-2.