Asteroid Mining

Researchers just can’t seem to keep their hands off the peanut-shaped asteroid Itokawa, and with good reason. Having already revealed some curious mineral quirks, it's now surprised scientists with its salt crystals, hinting at a water-bearing past.

NASA has given the okay to its long-delayed US$985 million Psyche deep-space mission to explore a metal-rich asteroid, also called Psyche, that may be worth as much as $10 quadrillion, or 90 times the world's entire $110-trillion economy.

Stand by to start space mining – not on an asteroid, but aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The experimental mining kit will use bacteria to study how microorganisms can be used to extract minerals and metals from rocks on asteroids, moons, and planets.

NASA has greenlit two deep-space mining concepts for further development. The awards are worth up to US$2 million over a two-year period and will fund a project to develop an autonomous Moon prospecting rover and a robotic mining system to extract water and other volatiles from the asteroids.

We may not be living in the age of asteroid mining (yet), but asteroid prospecting has come a step closer with news that Planetary Resources' Arkyd-6 satellite has successfully reached orbit.

Deep Space Industries has announced that it will conduct what it claims is the world’s first commercial interplanetary mining mission. It is planning to launch an unmanned spacecraft called Prospector-1 to intercept, survey, and land on a near-Earth asteroid as a prelude to space mining operations.

If it could work with asteroids, why not the Earth? That's the thinking behind space mining company Planetary Resources' plan to adapt its asteroid prospecting satellite design to Earth observation.

The Luxembourg government, along with the Luxembourg Société Nationale de Crédit et d'Investissement (SNCI), has entered into a partnership with the US asteroid mining company Deep Space Industries (DSI) to develop new commercial space technologies with an emphasis on asteroid mining.

To help find out if its worth going to a particular asteroid, scientists from Vanderbilt and Fisk Universities are developing a new gamma-ray spectroscope that's capable of scanning asteroids for valuable minerals.

The asteroid-mining industry has taken a step closer to becoming an actual thing, with the successful deployment of Planetary Resources' Arkyd 3 Reflight (A3R) spacecraft from the International Space Station Wednesday night.

NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Program has advanced to its second phase, green-lighting a series of futuristic technological concepts for further agency-backed development.

The NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts NIAC program has announced 15 phase I winners in its quest to make science fiction science fact.