NASA and other agencies have an exciting array of spacecraft missions to small bodies in the Solar System: to intriguing asteroids (incluing some “potentially hazardous” asteroids whose orbits bring them into Earth’s neighborhood), to an icy body in the outer Solar System beeyond Pluto, and even a demonstration of asteroid deflection as a planetary defense technique. Come hear about the mission encounters with small bodies that are happening in the next few months, and the missions being developed in the coming years.

Kelly Fast is the Near-Earth Object Observations Program Manager for NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office. She earned her B.S. in Astrophysics from UCLA and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Astronomy from the University of Maryland. Main-belt asteroid 115434 (2003 TU2) was renamed “Kellyfast” in honor of her contributions to planetary science.

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