David Rich | Joshua Schertz | Adam Hugo

China dominates. Asteroid mining dies but attends its own funeral. Reusable rockets lower the cost and increase access to space. The Moon, Mars, and asteroids all get new survey maps for water resources. Water-based thrusters perform well in orbit. Asteroids are blasted and samples collected. Space mining gets more legal scaffolding. The Moon gets one new rover and two new craters.

The aim of this document is to highlight the major developments surrounding space resources in 2019, with an eye towards following these developments through 2020 and beyond. Let’s get down to the science, business, policy, and real technology developments that will invigorate humanity’s expansion into space.

Index

Overview
Available Resources
Sensationalism vs Reality
The Moon
Near-Earth Asteroids
Cislunar
Mars
Law & Policy
Conclusion
References

Overview

Seeds sprouting in a small greenhouse on the farside of the Moon aboard the Chang’e 4 lander. Credit: CNSA.

The 2019 launch cadence in the United States began with a sputtering start due to a government shutdown, delaying commercial launches[1]. Meanwhile in China, activities continued full speed ahead, beginning with the Chang’e 4 mission performing a soft-landing on the far side of the Moon. Inside a small greenhouse aboard the lander, the first seeds sprouted[2] on the surface of another world. The last orbital launch of the year was the return-to-flight of the Long March 5 heavy-lift vehicle, which is critical to China’s major plans for the next decade.

Despite launch delays in the US, many successful science missions, like the New Horizons flyby of Arrakoth in the Kuiper Belt and Hayabusa2 sampling the near-Earth asteroid Ryugu, reached significant milestones in early 2019. However, the undercurrent of multi-decadal Chinese progress towards their space program[3] and other ambitions within their Belt and Road Initiative strikes a contrast to the rest of the world’s space programs, which have been dominated by political tension and gridlock.

The space resources industry is currently in a slow, steady march towards viability. The first wave of asteroid miners (Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries) may be gone[4], but many of the people involved are still actively working in the industry. The next wave of space resource companies are ramping up, while cautiously trying to avoid the pitfalls of their predecessors. The primary "lessons learned" are the need for short-term return on investment (ROI) to sustain daily operations and simultaneously scaling the demand side and customer base for space resources alongside supply.

In order to really contextualize the latest developments, it's important to take a high-level view of the entire space industry ecosystem. Some of the richest people and most powerful governments on Earth are putting massive amounts of effort, human resources, and capital towards building self-sufficient communities in space. During his high school valedictorian speech, Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, declared that he would build cities in space.

Bezos is selling $1 billion in Amazon stock[5] every year to fund Blue Origin, whose primary corporate goal is “millions of people living and working in space”. Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, wants to put a million people on Mars. SpaceX is building one of the world’s most powerful rockets to get them there. Almost every spacefaring nation wants to develop a permanent human presence in space, whether on the Moon, Mars, or free space. Developing and maintaining a steady supply of locally-available resources is critical to each of these plans and any permanent human settlements off the Earth’s surface.

Space resources are a means, not an end. The maturation of a vibrant space resource value chain is dependent upon connecting useful resources available in space to tackle problems and limitations of conventional space operations; specifically ones that are already profitable. Space resources will certainly be able to unlock new capabilities, but if their development is not approached incrementally, there are significant "chicken and egg" challenges to overcome. Which comes first, the mining operation to supply materials to a space settlement or the space settlement as the consumer of those materials and goods?

Getting anything into space is incredibly difficult. It’s barely possible, but humans can do it and have been doing so for over six decades. Dictated by physics, every payload must meet certain mass and volumetric constraints of the launch vehicle. Historically, space activities have been performed by large government agencies due to technical complexity and high capital expenditures. This is changing.

Maintaining a sustainable presence in space is no longer aligned one-dimensionally with geopolitics, but also with profitable ventures in communications, Earth observation, and manufacturing. In 2018, the global satellite industry was worth $360 billion[6], with government space agencies accounting for less than 25%.

The 2018 global space economy broken into sectors. Credit: Bryce Space and Technology.

Recent miniaturization of electronics, development of reusable launch systems, and competition between commercial launch providers has exponentially increased the capabilities of in-orbit assets while reducing costs. Increased access benefits traditional satellite operators as well as enabling new satellite capabilities.

Companies like Planet Labs operate a fleet of over 150 small satellites for Earth imaging. SpaceX has recently overtaken them as the world’s largest satellite operator as they strive to deploy and operate a multi-thousand satellite mega-constellation. OneWeb and Amazon have similar ambitions. This influx of operational spacecraft and increasingly risky debris environment stimulates a growing ecosystem of companies offering in-orbit satellite services as well.

As technologies to serve the satellite industry are developed and become routine, delivering materials to supply business growth in space will be critical to foster off-world commerce and long-term investments. Successful assessment of consumable materials that can be sourced from outside Earth’s gravity-well can enable improvements to life on Earth, scientific exploration, and sustain economic expansion into the Solar System for centuries.

Available Resources

Expanding humanity’s presence in space means attaining access to nearly unlimited resources. Space resources are not limited to just raw materials. The unique environments in space, including gravity, vacuum, radiation, and location can also be considered resources. Every prior industrial operation has been bound to characteristics found on Earth, however, completely new approaches can be utilized in space, offering unthinkable innovations.

Future communications mega-constellations in low-Earth orbit take advantage of their closer location to Earth than traditional geostationary communications satellites, minimizing latency. In-orbit manufacturing takes advantage of micro-gravity to build highly unique products, such as ZBLAN optical fiber, large space telescopes, or unsupported 3D printed organs[7].

Considering more tangible resources, raw materials represent the core building block for a sustainable space presence. A balance must be considered between the complexities and costs of extraction with their usefulness to a potential customer. Metals and stony material can be the primary feedstock for constructing large space structures, while volatiles enable propulsion and resources to sustain life. In terms of power requirements, mechanical complexity, additional chemical processing, and concentration per metric ton, the difficulty to process materials increases from volatiles to carbonaceous materials to stony materials to metals.

As a first stage, establishing a supply of volatiles will enable bootstrapping of the space resources industry. Volatiles include materials that contain water, which can be processed into purified water, hydrogen, and oxygen. The water can be used for human consumption, plant growth, and radiation protection. The oxygen and hydrogen can be used for propellant, energy via fuel cells, and other industrial processes.

In practice, volatiles are found in ice deposits at the lunar poles, in mid and high latitudes on Mars, and on certain asteroids. There is heavy focus on lunar polar ice, specifically ice found within permanently shadowed regions (PSRs) above 80 degrees lunar latitude. Ice has been confirmed within these zones, however, the exact quality and distribution is unknown without in-situ surveying.

Each resource needs to be located, characterized, captured, processed, concentrated, and transported to where they can be used. These are all factors in accessibility, and resource supply chains will develop based on this.

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Sensationalism vs Reality

While attention-grabbing headlines like to focus on the trillionaire asteroid miners and quintillion dollar asteroids, care must be taken to keep those stories grounded. These simplistic estimates are based on the unrealistic assumption that these resource-rich sources would be returned to Earth, where they would be sold to terrestrial markets at current prices. Not only would this cause economic disruption, but this is not an accurate reflection of how resource reserves are calculated on Earth.

Proven reserves is the terminology commonly used in terrestrial mining and petroleum industries for assessing the quantities and values of resources. This term is based off the assumption that the resource exists with 90% certainty, sold to a customer at current commodity prices, recoverable using existing technology, transported and processed using existing infrastructure, and legal under existing government regulations and frameworks. There are no resources in space that currently fit this stringent definition of proven reserves.

Additionally, most space resource advocates would argue that many of these raw materials are more valuable as feedstock for construction and manufacturing in space than they are when returned to Earth’s surface. Launching materials is an energy intensive and costly expenditure, which can be bypassed by sourcing resources in space directly.

Many government agencies, policy groups, and commercial companies are working to build the legal and technological structure capable of leveraging space resources for scientific exploration and economic development.

The Moon

Return to the Moon...

Extensive government spending is spurring the most intense lunar R&D since the Apollo program. 2019 saw the landing of China’s Chang’e 4 lander and surface exploration by their Yutu 2 rover, along with the landing failures of Israel’s Beresheet lander and India’s Vikram lander. While we won’t see another US-built lunar landing until at least 2021, NASA’s Artemis program is providing funding to advance many nascent space resource technologies while promising to return people to the Moon.

Picture of the Yutu rover after it drove away from the Chang’e 4 lander. This is the first time and lander has touched down on the farside of the Moon. Credit: CNSA.

China continued progress on its ambitions space program by landing the Chang’e 4 lander in Von Kármán crater[8] on the far side of the Moon on January 3, 2019. This was the first mission to land on the far side of the Moon, requiring a dedicated communications relay satellite in orbit to maintain communication between Earth and the lander. The lander hosted a biosphere where cottonseed, rapeseed, and potato seeds all sprouted a few days after landing, although they all succumbed to the extreme cold of the lunar night.

Additionally, the Yutu-2 rover far surpassed its 3 month planned life, holding the current record as the longest surviving lunar rover. Both the lander and rover use solar power for electricity generation and radioisotope heater units for heat generation. Chang’e 4 paves the way for China’s Chang’e 5 mission that is planned to launch in 2020. Chang’e 5 is expected to collect and return up to 2 kilograms of lunar material to Earth, the first lunar samples since the Russian Luna 24 mission in 1976.

Israel’s Beresheet lunar lander had less success at landing on the Moon. While descending towards the surface, an anomaly occurred that caused the lander to descent too quickly and crash into the surface. This was the first privately funded lander to touchdown (albeit in a crash) on the Moon. SpaceIL has indicated its drive to try another lunar landing soon.

Orbital images of the Beresheet impact site on the Moon. Credit: NASA LRO.

India also experienced a failed lunar landing with their Vikram lander. A computer anomaly occurred during descent that caused the lander to crash into the surface at high speed. Despite this, the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter has continued to operate successfully, providing very high quality images of the lunar surface. Its mission is to survey the abundance of lunar water, providing guidance for follow-on missions.

The US government wants to return humans back to the Moon by 2024 through the Artemis program, an international collaboration between NASA, ESA, JAXA, CSA, and US commercial companies. Initialized via the 2017 Space Policy Directive 1, the program received its timeline and name during 2019. Multiple support programs and projects are part of the Artemis program, including the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program and the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER). Additionally, Artemis requires launch vehicles capable of delivering the Orion, Lunar Gateway, and CLPS landers to the Moon. The Space Launch System (SLS) is NASA’s primary ride at the moment, although unexpected delays may change this.

Rather than developing lunar landers in-house, NASA is soliciting public-private partnerships with companies to develop these next generation landers. Multiple payload delivery services should foster competition, lower costs, and increase access for commercial operations on the lunar surface. NASA awarded three contracts in mid-2019 to Astrobotic, Intuitive Machines, and OrbitBeyond, who are required to build flight capable, small robotic landers capable of delivering at least 10 kg of payload by the end of 2021 (OrbitBeyond has since dropped out).

The Blue Moon lunar lander in development by Blue Origin. Credit: Blue Origin.

Not being content with only small lunar landers, NASA invited additional commercial firms[9] capable of providing larger landers to the CLPS initiative, including Blue Origin, Sierra Nevada, and SpaceX. These three firms, in addition to Boeing, are also contending for NASA’s Human Landing System (HLS) program, which will deliver humans to the lunar surface within the Artemis program. Artemis is unique compared to the Apollo program because the stated goal is to not only return humans to the Moon, but to establish a sustainable, long-term presence on the Moon.

Despite NASA’s steadfast push towards realizing Artemis’ programmatic goals, a growing cohort of space exploration advocates believe that offworld settlements should be established without a bureaucratic government agency at the helm. The Open Lunar Foundation[10] came out of stealth mode in 2019, with a vision towards low-cost and open-source settlement of the Moon. While specific details are scant, the public figures supporting Open Lunar are major thought leaders with decades of space exploration experience, lending significant credibility to the venture. Despite the approach taken, establishing a sustainable lunar presence is the most critical objective.

...This Time to Stay

Beyond the development of launch and landing capabilities of delivering payloads to the lunar surface, the core trend accelerating in 2019 is the necessity to learn more about the ice within the Moon’s PSRs and the technologies required to extract and process it. Ice is the key to sustainability in space. Lunar water ice offers one source of fuel for a growing cislunar economy. The Moon also contains a mission-enabling array of locally-sourced materials for a permanent human present on the lunar surface, should a government or other entity choose to establish one.

Lunar Mining & Landing Sites by planetary scientist Kevin Cannon[11]. Credit: Kevin Cannon.

Multiple new studies and models were developed to estimate the horizontal and vertical ice distribution, along with the potential composition of ice deposits. Having just celebrated its 10th year anniversary in lunar orbit, the NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is still providing the bulk of data on PSRs. But this will change with multiple ice mapping and surveying missions soon to be deployed.

Lunar IceCube[12] is one such mapping mission, where it will map the distribution and dynamics of water on the lunar surface. It is one of thirteen CubeSats planned to be launched in late 2020 on the Artemis 1 mission. Having received $7.9 million for development as part of the NASA NextSTEP program in April 2015, Lunar IceCube contains an infrared spectrometer that will be able to study water on the lunar surface and lunar exosphere (the very thin atmosphere surrounding the Moon). This mission will help scientists understand the water cycle on the Moon, enabling them to develop more accurate water distribution models of the lunar poles.

An early prototype of the NASA VIPER that may soon be exploring lunar PSRs for ice. Credit: NASA.

However, nothing beats in-situ observations. Fortunately, the NASA Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER)[13] is planned to launch in 2022 for a 100 day mission to map ice at the lunar south pole. This golf cart sized rover will survey within PSRs, operating on battery power while in permanent darkness, then return to sunlight to recharge via solar panels. Aside from a one meter long drill developed by Honeybee Robotics (a leader at developing in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) focused drills), the rover will carry a neutron spectrometer (able to detect hydrogen from a distance), a near infrared volatiles spectrometer (determine if the hydrogen collected belongs to water or hydroxyl), and a mass spectrometer (analyze the mineral and volatile composition). In total, VIPER will provide unprecedented insight into the regolith within one meter of the surface in a PSR. Pending a preliminary design review in 2020, VIPER should receive funding of around $250 million for launch by Dec 2022.

Science

Gathering ground truth is just the first part of increasing our understanding of ice distribution at the lunar poles. A few new models have been developed in 2019 that use novel methods for predicting what we can expect to find within lunar PSRs.

An international team[14] utilized LRO LOLA data to compare the reflections between flat surfaces within PSRs and adjacent non-PSRs. They found that 71 out of 75 PSRs analyzed were 5% more reflective (on average) than their adjacent non-PSRs. While not fully proving the existence of surface ice, these results indicate PSR surface ice is extensive.

A presentation at the 2019 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference[15] discussed a model that explores the origin of PSR ice, how extensive it is, and how it changes over time. Meteorite impacts cause surface regolith to get ejected, relocating deeper regolith towards the surface, and increasing the rate at which it sublimates. This process is called impact gardening, mixing, or overturning. This can repeatedly invert material though large disturbances. The model presented suggests that the more impacts that occur, the more material mixing that occurs, and the more ice that is sublimated within the disturbed area. Ultimately, the model predicts that ice deposits are highly variable and dynamic, requiring extensive in-situ study to understand more.

Another recent PSR model studied the surface strength of PSRs[16] via observing boulder tracks left from boulders descending crater slopes. The study determined that the regolith weight-bearing capacity decreases as the slope increases, which indicates that they behave more like sand dunes than solid rock. Regolith in PSRs on slopes over 20 degrees has a bearing capacity about half that on flat areas. This will be important for rovers navigating on sloped terrain, especially when traversing into or out of PSRs. Based on these findings, rovers operating in this type of environment would require large, dust capable wheels. Landers would also want to avoid dramatically sloped terrain which would pose an increased risk of sinking into the regolith.

In addition to mapping and characterizing the extent of lunar water ice resources, NASA is partnering with companies to develop methods to collect and process it. NASA is also funding programs like Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR), Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR), and NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) as a way to accelerate cutting edge technology development.

One of the two inaugural NIAC Phase III awards[17] provided funding to develop a small, autonomous rover able to explore lunar pits. Systems like this are essential for future PSR exploration and surveying tasks.

A team with the Space Resources Program at the Colorado School of Mines was awarded a NIAC Phase I study[18] to develop a thermal mining technique. This approach uses a tent-like structure and reflected solar energy to capture frozen volatiles. This funding has enabled work on the architecture design, lunar ice modeling, cryogenic vacuum chamber testing, optics, and solar system resource assessment.

TransAstra, a predominantly asteroid focused firm, also received NIAC Phase I[19] funding to study a propellant processing system within lunar PSRs, which they call the Lunar-Polar Propellant Mining Outpost. This system collects and processes raw ice within a PSR, utilizing a tower 1 km high to collect solar energy.

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Near-Earth Asteroids

Even though the core focus of NASA’s human flight is focused on the Moon, near-Earth asteroids remain a continued priority for planetary defense and scientific study. Progress is being made on the science, ground-truth, resource processing, and utilization of them. Next generation telescopes[20] will soon come online, two sample return missions are currently active, and early technology demonstrations are showing potential.

Science

With respect to the science and the applications to the technology, the most valuable references for asteroid processing have been the whitepapers produced by the Asteroid Science Intersections with In-Space Mine Engineering (ASIME) conferences held in 2016 and 2018. This was an effort to get all the major asteroid mining companies and the scientific experts on asteroids in the same room to discuss the scientific and technical hurdles. Their 2016 whitepaper[21] laid the critical groundwork, and the follow-up 2018 whitepaper[22] (published in April 2019) continued to answer many of the major challenges.

Scientific analysis in 2018 provided estimates on available and accessible water resources in near-Earth asteroids both from the perspective of composition and energy expenditures for rendezvous and return to cislunar space. This work helped inform further data collection in 2019 that refine overall understanding.

Hydrated minerals are of interest to asteroid mining companies, which hope to establish businesses on the basis of extracting and processing water. All of the estimates suggest that hydrated asteroids are more common than we would think from the meteorites that fall to Earth, and that dozens of them are larger than 1 km in diameter. Plentiful hydrated asteroids with a large size are favorably accessible in terms of delta-v when determining whether to collect water on asteroids or the Moon.[23][24]

The Pan-STARRS 1 observatory on Haleakala, Maui, Hawaii. The recent Pan-STARRS sky survey set a record for the largest astronomical data release ever when the second collection was released totaling 1.6 petabytes of data. This survey is able to iden… — The Pan-STARRS 1 observatory on Haleakala, Maui, Hawaii. The recent Pan-STARRS sky survey set a record for the largest astronomical data release ever when the second collection was released totaling 1.6 petabytes of data. This survey is able to identify many near-Earth objects by taking snapshots of the same patch of sky. Credit: PS1SC.

Major studies published this year provided much more data and techniques for analyzing near-Earth object (NEO) compositions. The MIT-Hawaii Near-Earth Object Spectroscopic Survey (MITHNEOS) analyzed spectra (a proxy for object composition) of 1000 NEOs. This study linked NEOs to certain asteroid families in the main belt, which suggests certain migration pathways. It also provided more detail to the discussion of how radiation and impacts alter the surface of asteroids and affect their spectral signatures from Earth-based telescopes. [25]

Another study published the first results of the Re-ionization And Transients InfraRed (RATIR) instrument for rapid-response spectral characterization. Fast follow-up characterization of small NEOs that may be good mining targets is critical. Long synodic periods of the most accessible (low delta-v) NEOs creates very short windows for discovery and follow-up observation, hence rapid observations are important. [26]

There is uncertainty in the quantity of available resources as a function of accessibility, which is defined by round-trip travel time and delta-v. One study provided a model to determine the amount of water that can be extracted from extremely low delta-v water-bearing asteroids and brought to cislunar space per year. [27]

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) is currently under construction at Cerro Pachón in Chile and will revolutionize the study of small bodies in our Solar System. It will see first light in 2020, with full operations by 2022. It’s expected that LSST will be responsible for increasing the known number of small bodies in the Solar System by 10-100 times. Scientists are preparing for 15 terabytes of image data produced from LSST per night. This includes software development for analysis, data communications infrastructure, and data workflows. [28]

The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) is a wide-field sky survey serving as a prototype to test software and data pipelines developed for LSST. Its major contribution this year has been the twilight survey which searches for objects orbiting close to the sun. This is currently a blind spot for Earth-based astronomy. [29] The implication for asteroid mining is the discovery of more accessible NEOs. Asteroids with low inclination, nearly co-orbital, and slightly interior to Earth's orbit are precisely the most accessible objects from a delta-v standpoint. [30]

The Arecibo Observatory is the second largest radio telescope in the world. It can generate shape models of near-Earth asteroids, aiding our understanding of them.

The Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico received a grant allowing it to spend up to 800 hours per year studying NEOs. Not only will the funds aid operations and maintenance, but also allow for upgrades to the radar system. Radar observations are key for characterizing asteroids and building shape models for them, a task not possible with terrestrial imaging telescopes.[31]

After being shelved for a few years, the NEOCam spacecraft is being revived. NEOCam is an infrared telescope designed to orbit at the Sun-Earth L1 Lagrange point, and is dedicated to identifying NEOs that might pose an impact threat to Earth. Objects that are within Earth’s orbit are very difficult to detect from Earth based telescopes, but space telescopes like NEOCam will provide much greater coverage of these objects. NASA decided to change the project from its scientific portfolio to its planetary defense portfolio, providing the project with a far greater chance at receiving sufficient funding to be launched.[32]

Ground Truth

While a vast amount of information about asteroids has been learned from Earth-based remote sensing, nothing beats in-depth sample analysis in a lab. In order to collect pristine samples, however, we must send spacecraft to retrieve them from asteroids. Alternatively, nature brings them to Earth in the form of meteorites, although atmospheric reentry alters their state.

Images from the surface of asteroid Ryugu show rocks similar to carbonaceous chondrite meteorites. Credit: JAXA.

Two sample return missions are currently ongoing, both studying C-type near-Earth asteroids that have hydration features. As scientists suspected, rocks on these asteroids are very similar to particular types of meteorites that have fallen to Earth: carbonaceous chondrites[33].

JAXA’s Hayabusa2 mission studied the asteroid Ryugu for nearly 17 months before beginning its journey back to Earth[34] in November 2019. Hayabusa2 deployed a fleet of landers, created and studied a crater using its small carry-on impactor, and retrieved two samples from the asteroid’s surface. These asteroid samples offer clues to unraveling the differences between meteorites that have impacted Earth and the asteroids that are studied remotely through telescopes. Understanding these differences allows scientists to develop more accurate asteroid models using remote data.

Time-lapse video of Hayabusa2 retrieving a sample from asteroid Ryugu. Credit: JAXA

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission arrived at the asteroid Bennu in December 2018 and has spent the year mapping the surface for a location to retrieve a sample. The surface of Bennu is littered with many more boulders and less craters than expected. To aid its efforts, NASA partnered with CosmoQuest to develop a citizen science mapping application to identify boulders, rocks, and craters.[35] Input from users helped train categorization algorithms to find a safe and interesting sample site. NASA selected 1 of 4 sites in December 2019 for sample collection operations in 2020.

As a preparation for sample analysis, many groups of scientists have studied carbonaceous chondrite meteorites for comparison. One study analyzed infrared reflectance spectra of carbonaceous chondrites in asteroid-like conditions. Atmospheric water affects ground-based spectral characterization, specifically in the 3-μm band, which is often used to determine whether an asteroid is hydrated. They performed this analysis on a variety of types available in terrestrial meteorite collections, as each carbonaceous chondrite group represents a distinct parent body. The results suggested that each parent body experienced different aqueous alteration and metamorphism environments. This study helped to provide a base-line for accurate interpretation. [36]

Boulders on the hydrated C-type asteroid Bennu. Credit: NASA

Another study analysed how surface temperature, surface roughness (rock or regolith), as well as observation geometry can affect the absorption features detected on asteroids. Results confirmed that warming meteorites to a certain temperature produces irreversible alteration (i.e. baking out the water). Among other conclusions, absorption features were much deeper in powder than chips, which has implications for NEOs, considering that small NEOs tend to have much less (if any) surface regolith compared to larger main-belt asteroids. [37]

Further research analyzed not just the thermal history and chemistry of meteorites but also the method of extracting water. Heating up carbonaceous chondrite meteorites released water as well as other volatile and toxic trace elements. The highest concentration of trace elements between all types of carbonaceous chondrites were sulfur and mercury. Aside from human toxicity, these trace elements in unfiltered water may corrode and cause brittle fracture in platinum or aluminum components, which are common in various types of filtration systems, electrolyzers, and rocket thrusters.[38]

Future in-situ resource utilization will require further work to enable water purification from heavy metals and sulfur without damaging the purification apparatus.[39]

Industry

Technology development for how to process water out of asteroid regolith continued to be a pertinent topic in 2020. Some of the top work came out of TransAstra, Honeybee Robotics, and Exolith Lab.

TransAstra received NIAC Phase III[40] funding to develop their Apis asteroid mining mission architecture. This work will further test the optical mining technology TransAstra has developed through previous NIAC Phase I and II studies. A key demonstration mission TransAstra is working towards involves their Mini Bee spacecraft[41], a 250 kg small-sat spacecraft that will test the optical mining concept in a space environment using a synthetic asteroid launched from Earth. This demonstration is expected to cost around $10 million and plans to launch in the early to mid-2020s.

TransAstra was awarded NIAC Phase III funding to develop Optical Mining. Credit: NASA

The advantage of the optical mining concept as an asteroid mining system is its relatively low power requirements and complexity. It can process water from hydrated asteroid material without a massive mechanical system for manipulation, crushing, or grinding. This demonstration will prove the feasibility for scaling Mini-Bee into Honey Bee, a larger asteroid mining spacecraft.[42]

The Mini Bee demonstration will use a CI-type asteroid simulant[43] made by the Florida-based Exolith Labs. A number of recipes for simulants that mimic the regolith found on asteroids, the Moon, and Mars were previously developed through SBIR Phase I funding by Deep Space Industries and the University of Central Florida (UCF). Simulants are useful for testing instruments and mechanical systems on the ground ahead of launch because of their affordable costs. This work was passed on to the not-for-profit organization Exolith Lab[44] in 2018, before Deep Space Industries was acquired by Bradford Space.

A Phase II STTR[45] originally awarded in 2016 to Honeybee Robotics concluded in 2019 through a successful demonstration of their WINE (the World Is Not Enough) spacecraft in vacuum. This involved extracting water from asteroid simulants, heating it up to create steam, and using that steam for launching the system up. This system could see further development as part of a deep space exploration system, able to visit multiple icy or hydrated bodies in the Solar System, refueling at each stop.[46]

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Cislunar

Commercial operations in cislunar space represent the largest possible pool of customers for materials available in space. Satellite servicing in particular is one of the fastest growing sectors in the industry, and offers immediate demand.

Satellite service companies seek to augment satellite capabilities by breaking the tyranny of launch. This includes:

Tug services to bring spacecraft to operational orbits quicker
Tug services to bring spacecraft to orbits and inclinations unavailable by launch provider
On-orbit refueling to extend operational lifespans
Assembly of parts too fragile or space-constrained for traditional launch vehicles (solar arrays, antenna, etc.)
Rendezvous and repair of defunct hardware
Deorbit services for debris and decommissioned hardware
Recycling of discarded or derelict parts

As this value chain grows and space resource extraction technologies are incrementally advanced, eventually supply and demand will meet, helping nascent business cases to close. Profitable commercial enterprises can provide long-term economic sustainability in a way that government outposts built using public funds cannot.

NASA has recently expressed interest in commercializing the International Space Station (ISS)[47]. While most of the ISS research is geared towards applications of living and working in space, there are a few commercial operations that have more direct impacts to space resource activities.

NASA astronaut Christina Koch monitors a satellite refueling experiment called Furphy on the ISS developed by startup company Orbit Fab. Credit: Orbit Fab

Companies like Orbit Fab have successfully tested in-orbit water transfer[48] aboard the ISS in 2019 as part of the development program for their orbital refueling services. They’ve also secured partners like Northrop Grumman to develop standardized robotic connectors[49] that, when adopted by satellite manufacturers, will enable commercial in-orbit refueling of satellites. NASA also recently announced a public-private partnership with SpaceX for propellant transfer[50] as a part of developing Starship, which is designed for in-orbit refueling and reusability.

Development in water-based thrusters saw significant progress in 2019[51]. Momentus, Bradford Space, and Tethers Unlimited all continued work on thrusters that utilize water as their propellant. Water is the simplest fuel that can be source-agnostic. Operators utilizing these thrusters could potentially be the first customers of water mined from the Moon or near-Earth asteroids. Momentus closed a Series A round raising $25.5 million, which will help their ambitions of becoming a cislunar space tug provider, moving customer satellites between Earth-based orbits. Momentus has already announced plans[52] to move their customer’s satellites to specific orbits after they are launched on SpaceX’s first dedicated small sat rideshare mission.

CubeSats and other small sats often utilize rideshares for being launched into space, however, the orbits they are deployed in can be less than ideal. In orbit adjustments can be made, however, this uses precious fuel that comes at the expense of other performance and endurance capabilities. Space tug services can therefore be utilized to adjust the orbits of these customers, amplifying the advantages of low cost rideshare launches and diminish the disadvantages.

In addition to augmenting launch capabilities, space tug services can also enable sustainability of satellite operations by offering life extension capabilities and decommissioning services. In October 2019, the Mission Extension Vehicle (MEV-1) mission[53] operated by Northrop Grumman was launched. MEV-1 is demonstrating the capability to rendezvous with a satellite (Intelsat 901) that currently resides in a post-mission graveyard orbit. It will move it to an operation orbit, and provide it with 5 years of station-keeping fuel to extend its lifespan before disposing it back into a graveyard orbit.

In an effort to kick start orbital cleanup efforts, Orbit Fab released a whitepaper detailing the business case for active deorbiting and debris cleanup services[54]. The challenge is getting the supply and demand sides to meet on pricing. Iridium floated the price of $10k to have one of its dead satellites deorbited[55]. While admittedly low and unfeasible for any debris removal company, it puts a monetary value on active satellite removal services, something not yet done. Astroscale, a Japanese space debris removal company, secured $132 million to develop and launch an orbital debris removal demonstration mission in 2020[56].

In-space manufacturing is also becoming a reality. Made In Space proposed a long-baseline interferometer that uses their in-space manufacturing system for assembling booms up to 50 m in length[57]. For even larger structures, their Archinaut system shows potential. NASA awarded Made In Space a $73.7 million contract through their Tipping Point public-private partnership to demonstrate in-space manufacturing of two 10 meter solar arrays[58]. Made In Space builds on a strong legacy of in-space manufacturing experience, having successfully demonstrating 3D printing of plastic parts and manufacturing extremely high grade ZBLAN optical fiber onboard the ISS in recent years.

Mars

Mars, its moons, and the main belt asteroids are relatively accessible compared to the rest of the Solar System. However, considering the propulsion technology currently available, long two-way trip times, and delta-v requirements make a challenging business case for returning these materials to cislunar space. These materials are still useful though, especially when used in-situ, or at location, enabling more complex missions of scientific exploration and eventual human settlement.

For the past few decades, NASA’s program of planetary exploration on Mars has been to “follow the water.” Water is a key to past and potentially currently habitable environments. Finding where water may exist today is beneficial to both scientific study and a long-term human presence. Water can be used to synthesize oxygen and fuel (methane) as well as enable a myriad of industrial processes and food growth. To that end, NASA has recently published maps showing the extent of water ice in the shallow subsurface of Mars[59].

2020 will mark a record year for Mars exploration. As many as four missions will be sent during this most recent low-energy launch window. The UAE will be sending a Mars orbiter. NASA, CNSA, and a joint ESA/Roscosmos mission will each be sending rovers. It should be noted that to date, only NASA has successfully soft-landed and deployed a rover to the Martian surface, but this may change soon.

NASA’s Mars 2020 rover builds on lessons learned from the Curiosity rover. Not only will it carry an experimental drone, the Mars Helicopter Scout[60], it will also test the Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment (MOXIE) that will synthesize oxygen out of the CO2 that makes up a majority of the Martian atmosphere[61].

Interplanetary Transport System (now Starship). Credit: SpaceX

MOXIE will be the first ISRU technology demonstration on another world, and will pave the way for further development of synthesizing methane (with the hydrogen from water). This is critical mission-enabling technology for any missions intending to return humans back from Mars. Two major rocket engines have been developed to run on liquid methane and liquid oxygen: Blue Origin’s BE-4 engine and SpaceX’s Raptor engine.

SpaceX has publicly (and maybe a little ambitiously) stated that they intend to send 1 million people to Mars. Every kilogram of water, fuel, oxidizer, or other consumable materials that can be made on Mars’ surface is a kilogram that doesn’t have to be transported from Earth in the first place. Every human settlement in history has required accessibility to resources, whether locally available or imported via transportation routes. Early space settlements striving for Earth independence and self-sufficiency will be essential for long term sustainability[62].

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Law and Policy

Nearly every major government space agency has begun talking about space resources in their long-term plans. ESA has recently outlined these plans in a formal space resources strategy document[64]. There has also been significant debate surrounding the legality and safety of utilizing space resources and the regulation of outer space in general. Within the past few years, a handful of nation-states have passed laws protecting the rights of their citizens to possess and use space resources. However, the ability to stake a claim and assessing the environmental impact of extraction efforts are a bit more ambiguous.

The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 forms the basis for international space law today, but it provides insufficient guidance for regulating space mining operations on celestial bodies (ie the Moon and asteroids). Article II of the treaty states, “Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation or by any other means.”[65] This strictly forbids any government to claim a celestial body, however, national legislation can allow private entities the legal right to engage in space mining activities. The US and Luxembourg are two countries that have developed legislation like this. The legality of mining claims and exclusion zones, among other items, are still being actively discussed by the United Nations and other international working groups, including the Hague Working Group.

Officially called The Hague International Space Resources Governance Working Group, this international body has been working since 2016 to assess the possible need for governance of space resource activities and to lay the groundwork for such a framework. In November 2019 it adopted the Building Blocks for the Development of an International Framework on Space Resource Activities[66]. This report provides twenty provisions that address different aspects of space resource activities, along with objectives, principles, and scope of the governance framework.

These building blocks do not comprehensively address space resource activities, advocating instead that they should be incrementally addressed as technology and practices change (principles of adaptive governance). Ultimately, this framework is aimed at “creating an enabling environment for space resource activities that takes into account all interests and benefits all countries and humankind.”

Current long-held legal precedents on Earth (which has a breathable atmosphere, biological ecosystems, hydrologic cycles, and standard gravity) do not always hold up to scrutiny when assessed against the vastly different physical environments found in space. Scientific study of offworld environments helps to inform discussions about these policy frameworks.

For example, the interaction between rocket exhaust plumes with regolith becomes a major risk for landing operations[67]. Building a base of lunar surface infrastructure requires landing multiple spacecraft with pinpoint accuracy near one another. Studies of the Apollo landings have shown that lunar regolith particles can reach velocities up to 6 km/s, which is greater than the Moon’s escape velocity. Apollo 12 landed near the Surveyor 3 lunar lander, essentially sand-blasting its surface. This highlights the fact that a landing operation potentially puts nearby surface hardware, as well as orbital spacecraft, at risk.

NASA is currently studying this problem in partnership with SpaceX, as part of the development Starship[68]. Starship is designed to land vertically on a variety of surfaces, and is orders of magnitude larger and more powerful than any previous lunar lander. Beyond the direct risks of damaging other space objects, ejecta plumes may require the creation of exclusion zones around other these objects.

The legal implication is that any heritage spacecraft or one that is operating in a particular location would essentially hold an exclusion zone under basic principles of non-interference. US legislators unsuccessfully attempted to pass a law in 2019 officially designating the Apollo landing sites as protected “human heritage”[69]. This becomes problematic under many interpretations of the current international frameworks that do not allow territorial claims.

Beyond the Moon, a recent study modeled the effect of debris generated from hypothetical mining operations on a handful of NEOs[70]. Meteoroids are already a natural background level threat that can cause a major malfunction or disable a satellite in Earth orbit. As the number of satellites increases, any uncontrollable debris exacerbates the hazard for remaining satellite and spacecraft operators.

For perspective, over a third of the revenue generated by the $360 billion satellite industry is by commercial satellites operators providing vital services, such as global telecommunications, weather forecasting, and GPS[6]. There’s a great necessity to prevent a “tragedy of commons” (like making Earth orbit unusable for future generations), while not impeding the commercial development of outer space.

Perhaps the most controversial example is the deployment of satellite constellations in low-Earth orbit, including SpaceX’s Starlink. Many astronomers have raised concerns at the impact the Starlink satellites cause for human enjoyment of the night sky and their astronomical observations[71]. Additionally, as many more satellites are launched, the risk of in-orbit collisions, both intentional and unintentional, greatly increases.

Through an operation codenamed Mission Shakti, India tested an anti-satellite weapon, destroying their own military satellite and creating 270 trackable pieces of orbital debris and countless tiny fragments[72]. India became the fourth nation (after the US, Russia, and China) to demonstrate the capability to destroy a satellite in orbit. This sort of activity in a common domain like space poses a risk to all satellite operators in the same orbital plane. A collisional cascade (also known as Kessler syndrome) could create a cloud of debris, rendering certain orbits unusable for future generations[73].

Conclusion

Nearly everyone wants to go back to the Moon to establish a permanent human presence. Near-Earth asteroids and the surface of Mars are being systematically studied and surveyed. The economy of cislunar space is growing and soon may be able to use fuel extracted from the Moon or asteroids. In response to all this progress, governments and international legal bodies are taking notice and preparing for new precedents in space environments.

We are still in the infancy of spacefaring. Visionaries and dreamers can almost tangibly sense that humanity is on the cusp of becoming a multi-planet species. The economic potential of space is slowly beginning to catch up. Establishing thriving communities in space is a grand vision, and we may not yet be up to the task. What we are attempting to do is nothing short of compacting the entire modern global industrial stack and shipping it to an utterly inhospitable environment[75]. This task is difficult and will require millions of dedicated individuals to accomplish. But it is not impossible.

Meaningful strides are being made right now towards these lofty goals. Space resources are central to humanity’s expansion into the Solar System, and we hope you join us in advocating for this grand cause.

Wanderers is a vision of humanity's expansion into the Solar System, based on scientific ideas and concepts of what our future in space might look like, if it ever happens[76]. Credit: Erik Wernquist