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Clark R. Chapman

B612 Foundation
Not-for-profit organization
Industry Planetary defense
Genre 501(c)(3)
Founded October 7, 2002
Founder Dr. Clark Chapman
Dr. Piet Hut
Dr. Ed Lu
Rusty Schweickart
Headquarters Menlo Park, California, USA
Key people
Dr. Marc Buie, SMS
Tom Gavin, SSRT
Dr. Scott Hubbard, SPA
Dr. David Liddle, BoD
Dr. Ed Lu, CEO
Diane Murphy, PR
Dr. Harold Reitsema, SMD
Danica Remy, COO
John Troeltzsch, SPM
Products Sentinel space telescope
Website B612 Foundation

The B612 Foundation is a private nonprofit foundation headquartered in Menlo Park, California, United States, dedicated to planetary defense against asteroids and other near-Earth object (NEO) impacts. It is led mainly by scientists, former astronauts and engineers from the Institute for Advanced Study, Southwest Research Institute, Stanford University, NASA and the space industry.

As a non-governmental organization it has conducted two lines of related research to help detect NEOs that could one day strike the Earth, and find the technological means to divert their path to avoid such collisions. The organization has publicized the true rate of "city-killer" type impacts of the same magnitude as the explosive 1908 Tunguska event, a rate which is from three to ten times greater than previously believed, or about every century on average. It also assisted the Association of Space Explorers in helping the United Nations establish the International Asteroid Warning Network, as well as a Space Missions Planning Advisory Group to provide oversight on proposed asteroid deflection missions.

In 2012, the foundation announced it would design and build a privately financed asteroid-finding space observatory, the Sentinel Space Telescope, to be launched in 2017–2018. Once stationed in a heliocentric orbit around the Sun similar to that of Venus, Sentinel's supercooled infrared detector will help identify dangerous asteroids and other NEOs that pose a risk of collision with Earth. In the absence of substantive planetary defense provided by governments worldwide, B612 is conducting a fundraising campaign to cover the Sentinel Mission, estimated at $450 million for 10 years of operation. Fund raising has been very slow—raising only US$3 million in 2012 and 2013—and, as of June 2015, NASA is re-examining its reliance on private sector approach to space-based NEO survey missions.


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