Asteroid mining start-up Planetary Resources has vowed to launch its first satellites next year after partnering with the engineering giant behind the Hoover Dam.
San Francisco-based Bechtel joined a core group of investors that already includes Google…
Asteroid mining start-up Planetary Resources has vowed to launch its first satellites next year after partnering with the engineering giant behind the Hoover Dam.
San Francisco-based Bechtel joined a core group of investors that already includes Google founder Larry Page and CEO Eric Schmidt, as well as film director James Cameron.
Riley Bechtel, CEO of the engineering group, which is also known for its Earth-based mining projects such as the Los Bronces copper mine in Chile, said: “Our companies share a common vision to continually innovate and push boundaries, all aimed at contributing to a better quality of life.”
Bechtel joined as a collaborative partner shortly before Planetary Resources pledged to launch a small set of cubesats next year to test some of its technology.
At a Google+ Hangout event on 24 April to mark the one year anniversary since announcing Planetary Resources, the group said it will put tiny spacecraft dubbed “Arkyd-3” into low-Earth orbit in 2014 – a year before plans to launch its Arkyd-100 scouts into LEO to hunt for mineable asteroids.
Chris Voorhees, vice president of spacecraft development at Planetary Resources, explained how Arkyd-3 will be “the test bed manifestation” of the Arkyd-100 spacecraft.
He added that the company hoped to have the cubesats in space by the time it celebrates its second anniversary.
Eventually, Planetary Resources envisages sending robotic probes out of Earth orbit to investigate asteroids up close, with the aim of one day mining them for resources such as precious metals.
To date 1,763 asteroids have been discovered that the company claims are easier to get to, energetically, than the moon. Of those around 200 were only discovered in the past year.
Meanwhile, Planetary Resources said its technology could help reduce costs for a separate asteroid capturing mission recently announced by NASA.
On 10 April, as part of its request for a US$17.7bn budget for the 2014 fiscal year, the US space agency unveiled plans to capture an asteroid so it can be studied by astronauts.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said the mission would lead to new discoveries and technological capabilities, which would help protect the Earth from asteroid crashes.
He added that it would also support the US President’s goal to send humans to an asteroid by 2025.
Earlier in April NASA awarded Planetary Resources a contract worth up to US$125,000 for a software system that would enable spacecraft to manoeuvre in close proximity to asteroids, or the International Space Station.
Another US private venture also developing spacecraft that could one day mine asteroids is Deep Space Industries, which plans to send a fleet of small prospecting spacecraft into the solar system in 2015. These will be followed the next year by larger spacecraft that are being designed to bring back samples from asteroids.
The venture’s chairman, Rick Tumlinson, is credited for leading the team that took over the Mir Space Station as the world’s first commercial space facility.
