The Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS; Observatory codes T05 and T08) is a robotic astronomical survey and early warning system optimized for detecting smaller near-Earth objects a few weeks to days before they impact Earth.
Funded by NASA, and developed and operated by the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy, the system currently has two 0.5-meter telescopes located 160 km apart, at Haleakala (ATLAS-HKO) and Mauna Loa (ATLAS-MLO) observatories.
ATLAS began observations in 2015 with one telescope and its two-telescopes version has been operational since 2017. Each of the two telescopes surveys one quarter of the whole observable sky four times per clear night, for a four-fold coverage of the observable sky every two clear nights.
The project has obtained NASA funding for two additional telescopes in the Southern hemisphere. Once operational, those two telescopes will improve ATLAS's four-fold coverage of the observable sky from every two clear nights to nightly, and will fill its current blind spot in the far southern sky.
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