B612 Foundation

The B612 Foundation is a non-profit non-governmental organization and the foundation that has made the exploration of near-Earth objects, protecting the earth from the impact and the establishment of a possible asteroid defense to the task. The Foundation was established in October 2001 at a workshop at the NASA Johnson Space Center by the astrophysicist Piet Hut and former astronaut Edward Tsang Lu. Other members include, inter alia, former astronaut Russell Schweickart Louis and the astronomer Harold Reitsema. The Foundation was named after the fictional asteroid named B612 from the story The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint- Exupéry.

In the summer of 2012, the organization announced plans for a space mission called SENTINEL (German monitor). The aim of the mission is about the year 2017 to bring a space telescope with a Falcon - carrier system in an orbit around the sun. With the infrared space telescope, it is possible to detect potentially dangerous earth's orbit cruiser. The telescope is being built by Ball Aerospace.