[2] Spacewatch was founded in 1980 by Tom Gehrels and Robert S. McMillan, and is currently led by astronomer Melissa Brucker at the University of Arizona.

[7] Each year, Spacewatch observes approximately 35 radar targets, 50 near-Earth objects, and 100 potential spacecraft rendezvous destinations.

[8] The 1.8 meter Spacewatch telescope and its building on Kitt Peak were dedicated on June 7, 1997 for the purpose of finding previously unknown asteroids and comets.

This survey used data taken over 34 months by the University of Arizona’s Spacewatch Project based at Steward Observatory, Kitt Peak.

This proved that new sweeps of the sky are productive even if they have been previously examined simply due to the complexities of running large surveys over many nights and variable conditions.