(9248) Sauer Main-belt Asteroid

Discovered on 24 September 1960 by van Houten, C. J., van Houten-Groeneveld, I., Gehrels, T. at Palomar.

Named in honor of Carl G. Sauer, Jr., a principal flight mechanics engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Since 1952, when he began work at JPL, Carl has been a leader in the development of the analysis tools used for designing the ballistic and low-thrust spacecraft missions that explore the solar system. His work has included mission designs for advanced spacecraft propulsion systems, including solar electric ion propulsion, nuclear propulsion and solar sailing. His database of potential spacecraft trajectories to hundreds of comets and minor planets is an invaluable resource for mission design work at JPL.Naming citation (19990402/MPCPages.arc), IAU / Minor Planet Center, via NASA/JPL

Where Sauer is today

Seen from above the solar system on 2026-10-14: Sauer is 2.86 au from the Sun and 3.23 au from Earth. Computed from JPL's orbital elements.

Facts

Number	9248
Provisional designation	4593 P-L
Orbit class	Main-belt Asteroid
Diameter	4.96 km (#10,688 largest of 17,440 named asteroids with a measured size)
Albedo	0.217
Absolute magnitude (H)	13.78
Orbital period	4.79 years
Semi-major axis	2.84 au
Perihelion – aphelion	2.62 – 3.07 au
Eccentricity	0.0796
Inclination	2.24°
Closest distance between its orbit and Earth's (MOID)	1.62 au

Data: NASA/JPL Small-Body Database and the IAU Minor Planet Center.

Also named after someone called Carl

All asteroids named after someone called Carl

Also discovered on 24 September 1960

More named asteroids discovered by van Houten, C. J., van Houten-Groeneveld, I., Gehrels, T.

All 958

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