NASA discussing asteroid-threat exercise today: Watch it live

The simulation, called the Planetary Defense Interagency Tabletop Exercise, was held April 2 and April 3 at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Maryland. It aimed “to inform and assess our ability as a nation to respond effectively to the threat of a potentially hazardous asteroid or comet,” NASA officials said in a statement.

Officials from NASA and other organizations will discuss the results of the exercise during a briefing today at 3:30 p.m. EDT (1930 GMT). You can watch it live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA.

Participating in the briefing will be:

• Lindley Johnson, NASA’s Planetary Defense Officer Emeritus, NASA Headquarters, Washington
• Leviticus “L.A.” Lewis, FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) detailee to NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office, NASA Headquarters
• Terik Daly, planetary defense section supervisor, APL

NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office and FEMA organized the April exercise, with the help of the U.S. Department of State Office of Space Affairs. It was the fifth such simulation that researchers have conducted.

“While there are no known significant asteroid impact threats for the foreseeable future, hypothetical exercises like this one, which are conducted about every two years, provide valuable insights on how the United States could respond effectively if a potential asteroid impact threat is identified,” NASA officials wrote in the same statement.

“This year’s exercise was the first to include participation by NASA’s international collaborators in planetary defense and the first to have the benefit of actual data from NASA’s successful DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission, the world’s first in-space technology demonstration for defending Earth against potential asteroid impacts,” they added.