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This nifty answer describes and provides links to the data of the recovery of near earth object 2012 TC4, and the answer also shows the first actual image of the body for this pass. At apparent magnitude +27 (at about 52 million km) it may be the faintest asteroid to have been imaged to date. It's worth visiting that answer first before reading on here.

This comment points out that 2012 TC4 appears on the Goldstone Asteroid Schedule, a list of upcoming planned observations of asteroids by antennas at the Deep Space Network. Here are the entries for 2012 TC4 in the Upcoming Observations and Past Observations tables:

Upcoming Goldstone Observations
DATES           TARGET    H     Notes:
2017 Oct  9-14  2012 TC4  26.7  Close approach = 7.9 Earth radii on Oct. 12. NHATS

Past Goldstone Observations
DATES           TARGET          Notes:
2012 Oct        2012 TC4        Echoes not detected. Likely equipment issues.

I noticed at the top of the page there is a link to the The Arecibo asteroid radar schedule, and in the fifth line of the list shown in the screen shot below, I see that for 2012 TC4 there will be what is labeled there as a "WORLDWIDE CAMPAIGN!" of observations. The all-caps and exclamation point are a direct quote from Arecibo's table.

Question: What is the extent of the worldwide campaign to observe 2012 TC4? How many facilities? Is it coordinated? Perhaps simultaneous reception of reflected signals by multiple sites? Will it be coordinated with other observations such as infrared or optical wavelengths?

The plot below the Arecibo table is made from JPL Horizons data in the Earth-Moon barycenter frame. It shows +/- 24 hours from closest approach. The hyperbola (red) is the calculated trajectory of 2012 TC4 with dots every 2 hours and the short, (roughly) circular arc is the Moon, as descried in this question. The closest approach to Earth's center is projected to be about 51,000 km. These are preliminary calculations based on the first observation and may be refined a bit as the time of closest approach nears.

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  • $\begingroup$ @pericynthion You are absolutely right; Astronomy SE is better suited for this question. Thanks! $\endgroup$
    – uhoh
    Commented Aug 13, 2017 at 6:02

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The JPL press release mentions that more than 12 observatories, labs and universities will be involved but doesn't mention which. https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6906 Paragraph from JPL press release about the tracking campaign

The University of Maryland has a website on the 2017 apparition of 2012 TC4 http://2012tc4.astro.umd.edu/index.shtml Here's a snapshot of the list of planned observations shown there List of planned observations of 2012 TC4 in 2017

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    $\begingroup$ Thank you for posting an answer. This is called a link-only answer and is generally not considered a proper stackexchange answer. I the link goes dead (many do, including NASA links) then the answer becomes useless, and that that defeats the whole point of writing and accepting answers here. Can you write a summary, or add a table, or somehow outline scope of the worldwide campaign yourself, in the text of the answer itself? Thanks! Welcome to stackexchange, and you can take the tour to get a better idea of what is expected of SE answers. $\endgroup$
    – uhoh
    Commented Aug 13, 2017 at 12:30
  • $\begingroup$ Thank you to Community for the edits - this is very helpful! I'm looking through these (and related) now... $\endgroup$
    – uhoh
    Commented Aug 15, 2017 at 8:56

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