A prospective asteroid mining company has accept a major dance step towards beginning operations in the next 10 year . Deep Space Industries ( DSI)has announcedplans to launch a demonstration space vehicle to screen some of the technologies that will be needed to find and utilize asteroid textile .
Now , asteroid mining is probably something that still feel like it ’s far off in the time to come at the import . But last week , DSI said that it will partner with Luxembourg ( via theirSpace Resources initiative ) to modernize the various engineering needed to start asteroid mining . The first result of this partnership is a space vehicle calledProspector - X , which is a modest vehicle that will be launched into low Earth orbit within a class .
“ This is the first important footstep to be able to test the technologies , and organize the kind of partnerships that will get us there in the long full term , ” Daniel Faber , CEO of DSI , told IFLScience .
DSI ’s ultimate goal is to have a fleet of prospecting spacecraft locate asteroid to be mined , with subsequent vehicle sent to the control surface to actually extract resources . Before that can be done , though , a number of engineering science need to be developed , some of which are on Prospector - X.
This include a seafaring organisation to help spacecraft safely move around asteroid , and other spacecraft ( although this one will remain in Earth orbit ) . Also to be prove will be shielding for electronics in space , to protect them from irradiation .
But most interestingly of all is a new character of thruster , which is powered by nothing but water . Called Comet-1 , the pusher will superheat pee inside the ballistic capsule , and the resultant steam will be fired out of the spacecraft , providing fuel efficiency corresponding to a even chemical ballistic capsule thruster .
“ call up of it as a aviate steam kettle , ” Faber say . “ We can use the water system directly as a propellant , we do n’t have to burn it , just speed it . ”
An artist ’s impression of Prospector - X. DSI
This has some rather crucial connotations . Asteroid excavation has often been vaunt as a way to receive large measure of precious metallic element like atomic number 78 , as some asteroid are plentiful in such alloy . But piss is perhaps now the more desirable resourcefulness , as it can be extracted and re - used in space for a potentially lower price than it costs to plunge it from Earth .
Water , as you may know , has a figure of important uses , from drink piddle to providing the constituents ( hydrogen and O ) of Eruca sativa fuel . Chris Lewicki , chief executive officer of rival asteroid minelaying company Planetary Resources , evoke thatwater “ will delineate the 21st 100 in space , as oil fix the twentieth C on Earth . ”
But Prospector - X is showcasing a different exercise of H2O , namely how it can be used directly as a fuel . Perhaps this technology could be utilized by a fleet of prospect asteroid space vehicle , to keep them fueled as they do their performance on an asteroid .
There are still many technology that need to be tested and perfect before asteroid mining can become a realness . But Prospector - X is a step towards that goal , one that Faber say can be achieved perhaps sooner than you call up .
“ We could begin mining operations in as petty as 10 years , ” he said . “ Now , there ’s a mickle we need to teach about the geology of asteroids , and we need to get origin equipment workings , but a 10 - year time skeleton is completely feasible . ”
