On Jan 1, 2019, the NASA New Horizons spacecraft flew by Ultima Thule, a 31 km wide Kuiper belt object (KBO) that is the most distant object ever visited by a human spacecraft. By studying unaltered KBOs, we gain a better understanding of how certain near-Earth objects formed and evolved as they traveled into the inner Solar System. This insight allows us to design and build more effective missions that can eventually prospect and mine NEOs for valuable resources.
Read MoreKorolev crater is an 81 km diameter impact crater located near the Martian north pole. It is unusual because it contains year round water ice even though it’s located further south than the perennial ice stability line. Recent Martian missions have investigated this crater, uncovering some of the mysteries hidden below the ice. Korolev may be an ideal location for a future water extraction system. It contains enough ice to make such a mission worthwhile.
Read MoreKris Zacny of Honeybee Robotics made an exciting announcement on New Year’s Eve 2018; the successful demonstration of their WINE (the World Is Not Enough) spacecraft in vacuum. This prototype demonstration extracting water from asteroid simulants, heating it up to create steam, and using that steam for launching the system up. This prototype is paving the way for missions to eventually extract water from asteroids and return it to Earth orbit.
Read MoreAfter raising $500 million in funding and receiving FCC permission for launch and operations, SpaceX is making good progress towards launching the first wave of satellites for its Starlink Constellation in 2019. The SpaceX Starlink was originally proposed by Elon Musk in 2015 to provide high bandwidth global internet using 11,927 satellites. If launched, Starlink promises to be the largest satellite constellation by a substantial margin.
Read MoreOn September 21, 2018 the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced that MINERVA-II-1’s two rovers, Rover-1A and Rover-B, landed on asteroid Ryugu. This was the first time humans have landed a mobile exploration robot on an asteroid along with capturing images from an asteroid’s surface. The photographs taken by the rovers showed a beautiful scene of boulders, without visible regolith.
Read MoreNASA (and DLR) will soon be breaking new lows on Mars with the deployment of InSight’s Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package, or HP3 by burrowing down deeper than any instrument ever deployed off Earth. HP3 main mission is to study Martian crust properties and evolutionary history. Though this may appear to only be a science based mission, gaining a deeper understanding of Mars' crust is essential for developing any mining system that will excavate material beyond the surface.
Read MoreAs part of the Russian Federal Space Agency’s (Roscosmos) Luna-Glob lunar exploration program, Roscosmos and the European Space Agency (ESA) are teaming up to prospect for water at the lunar south pole. The Russian Luna 27 mission will be entering its detailed design phase in 2019, with launch planned for around 2022. Upon arriving at the moon, the Russian Luna 27 lander will set itself down in the South Pole Aitken basin, on the moon’s far side.
Read MoreNASA’s twin Mars Cube One (MarCO) cubesats successfully completed their demonstration mission of relaying telemetry from the Mars InSight lander during InSight’s descent into the Martian atmosphere on November 26, 2018. This is a major milestone for cubesats because it validates that they can survive deep space and provide unique capabilities to future deep space missions.
Read MoreThe United States Geological Survey (USGS) is a United States government scientific agency which has long been tasked with studying the landscape of the United States, including mapping it’s natural resources. Recently, however, the USGS has signaled intentions of documenting and mapping certain space resources.
Read MoreKickstarting the space economy is one of the most important activities within the space resources community. The industry that kickstarts the space economy probably isn’t obvious now, but will be in hindsight. Here are some industries that can make this happen.
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