With the deployment of its test-spacecraft Thursday morning from the International Space Station, the Redmond company Planetary Resources has taken a big, practical step toward its goal of mining asteroids.
The company announced in a news release that its Arkyd 3 Reflight (A3R) left an airlock and began a 90-day mission.
“The demonstration vehicle will validate several core technologies including the avionics, control systems and software, which the company will incorporate into future spacecraft that will venture into the Solar System and prospect for resource-rich near-Earth asteroids,” the company said.
Arkyd 6, launching later this year. Photo by Planetary Resources.
The simple-sounding step came after a rocket exploded in October last year destroying their first test vehicle just as it got off the ground, a $1.5 million Kickstarter campaign to fund a super-telescope and tons of press about their asteroid-mining desires.
After the private, old-tech Antares rocket failed during lift-off on its ISS resupply mission, Planetary Resources wrote on their Kickstarter page,
While these frustrating types of setbacks do happen from time to time (it’s rocket science after all), we prepare for these challenges and have never been more motivated to keep at it! We’re already hard at work developing our next test vehicle, the Arkyd 6, which is planned for launch in Q3 2015. These spacecraft all help prove technology for the Arkyd 100 spacecraft that will deliver your #SpaceSelfies and more.
And indeed, they have now taken that next step into space … where trillions of dollars lay waiting on asteroids!
Peter H. Diamandis, M.D., co-founder and co-chairman, Planetary Resources, Inc., stated (in the news release), “The successful deployment of the A3R is a significant milestone for Planetary Resources as we forge a path toward prospecting resource-rich asteroids. Our team is developing the technology that will enable humanity to create an off-planet economy that will fundamentally change the way we live on Earth.”
Eric Anderson, co-founder and co-chairman, Planetary Resources, Inc., said, “This key technology for determining resources on asteroids can also be applied towards monitoring and managing high-value resources on our home planet. All of our work at Planetary Resources is laying the foundation to better manage and increase humanity’s access to natural resources on our planet and in our Solar System.”
Related story: Rosetta/Philae: Is this the most important space image of a generation?
We have robots on Mars, satellites spread throughout our galaxy, circling the sun and even one zooming through interstellar space, but the above photo of Philae — the European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission lander — may document the most important space mission yet.
Why? Asteroid mining. They’re like little resource packets just floating around out there.
If NASA finds the remnants of life on Mars, that will be intellectually, psychologically … hell, philosophically important. But, it won’t by itself potentially revolutionize the world’s industry and human ability to populate space.
But capturing and dragging asteroids back toward Earth or landing on them where they are as Philae did, hunkering down and mining rare metals or building platforms for expanding our presence off Earth, has the real potential for changing our lives.
Read the rest here …
Jake Ellison can be reached at 206-448-8334 or jakeellison@seattlepi.com. Follow Jake on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Jake_News. Also, swing by and *LIKE* his page on Facebook.
If Google Plus is your thing, check out our science coverage here.
from The Big Science Blog http://ift.tt/1SpVNxQ
With the deployment of its test-spacecraft Thursday morning from the International Space Station, the Redmond company Planetary Resources has taken a big, practical step toward its goal of mining asteroids.
The company announced in a news release that its Arkyd 3 Reflight (A3R) left an airlock and began a 90-day mission.
“The demonstration vehicle will validate several core technologies including the avionics, control systems and software, which the company will incorporate into future spacecraft that will venture into the Solar System and prospect for resource-rich near-Earth asteroids,” the company said.
Arkyd 6, launching later this year. Photo by Planetary Resources.
The simple-sounding step came after a rocket exploded in October last year destroying their first test vehicle just as it got off the ground, a $1.5 million Kickstarter campaign to fund a super-telescope and tons of press about their asteroid-mining desires.
After the private, old-tech Antares rocket failed during lift-off on its ISS resupply mission, Planetary Resources wrote on their Kickstarter page,
While these frustrating types of setbacks do happen from time to time (it’s rocket science after all), we prepare for these challenges and have never been more motivated to keep at it! We’re already hard at work developing our next test vehicle, the Arkyd 6, which is planned for launch in Q3 2015. These spacecraft all help prove technology for the Arkyd 100 spacecraft that will deliver your #SpaceSelfies and more.
And indeed, they have now taken that next step into space … where trillions of dollars lay waiting on asteroids!
Peter H. Diamandis, M.D., co-founder and co-chairman, Planetary Resources, Inc., stated (in the news release), “The successful deployment of the A3R is a significant milestone for Planetary Resources as we forge a path toward prospecting resource-rich asteroids. Our team is developing the technology that will enable humanity to create an off-planet economy that will fundamentally change the way we live on Earth.”
Eric Anderson, co-founder and co-chairman, Planetary Resources, Inc., said, “This key technology for determining resources on asteroids can also be applied towards monitoring and managing high-value resources on our home planet. All of our work at Planetary Resources is laying the foundation to better manage and increase humanity’s access to natural resources on our planet and in our Solar System.”
Related story: Rosetta/Philae: Is this the most important space image of a generation?
We have robots on Mars, satellites spread throughout our galaxy, circling the sun and even one zooming through interstellar space, but the above photo of Philae — the European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission lander — may document the most important space mission yet.
Why? Asteroid mining. They’re like little resource packets just floating around out there.
If NASA finds the remnants of life on Mars, that will be intellectually, psychologically … hell, philosophically important. But, it won’t by itself potentially revolutionize the world’s industry and human ability to populate space.
But capturing and dragging asteroids back toward Earth or landing on them where they are as Philae did, hunkering down and mining rare metals or building platforms for expanding our presence off Earth, has the real potential for changing our lives.
Read the rest here …
Jake Ellison can be reached at 206-448-8334 or jakeellison@seattlepi.com. Follow Jake on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Jake_News. Also, swing by and *LIKE* his page on Facebook.
If Google Plus is your thing, check out our science coverage here.
from The Big Science Blog http://ift.tt/1SpVNxQ
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