Survey simulation output files, presented at the May 2024 "Science with NEO Surveyor" Workshop in San Diego, CA, USA

Included here are output files from a series of simulations run using the NEO Surveyor Survey Simulation tool.  These files were first provided to the community at the Science with NEO Surveyor Workshop in San Diego, CA, in May 2024.

Each simulation has three output files:

• *_props.tbl which gives the properties of the input population for the simulation, including name, size, geometric V-band albedo, absolute magnitude, and orbital parameters
• *_flux.tbl which provides detection information for each object that would have been detected by NEO Surveyor, including its NC1 and NC2 magnitudes and SNRs, as well as earth-to-spacecraft position vector at the time of detection; these data are intended to be analogous to what would be provided from the detection tables that will be archived with IRSA
• *_geom.tbl which provides the heliocentric distance, observer distance, and phase angle for each object at each detection; these data are to facilitate thermal modeling, assuming perfect orbit knowledge

The populations simulated here are:

• NEO_SSR1: A simulated population of 25,000 NEOs with size of 140m and larger
• 50m_60m_NEO_SSR1: A simulated population of 10,000 NEOs with sizes between 50 and 60 m
• small_MBA_SSR_0000: A simulated population of ~10,000 main belt asteroids with sizes ranging from 400m to 10km 
• neos_of_interest: A selection of 13 real NEOs with known or assumed properties
• mbas_of_interest: A selection of 28 real MBAs with known or assumed properties 
• comets_of_interest: A selection of 7 real comets with known or assumed properties (note, fluxes provided are nucleus-only)

Two other files are provided:

• photo_params.dat which provides the current best estimate (as of May 2024) for the values of the magnitude zero-points and band centers for each band
• neo_surveyor_pointing_list.dat which provides a sequence of field centers, solar elongations, and spacecraft positions and velocities for the nominal survey pattern and orbit used for the simulations

Acknowledgment: If you use any of these data products for a publication please cite Mainzer et al. 2023, PSJ, 4, 224, doi:10.3847/PSJ/ad0468, and include the following acknowledgment: "This publication makes use of software and data products from the NEO Surveyor mission, which is a joint project of the University of California, Los Angeles and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration."