Two weeks ago I attended the Space Entrepreneurs Epicenter of Space meeting in Marina Park in Kirkland Washington. The Keynote Speaker was Chris Lewicki, the President and Chief Engineer for Planetary Resources, a company dedicated to asteroid mining. Their vision is to "bring the natural resources of space within humanity’s economic sphere of influence, propelling us into the 21st century and beyond…today." They say that "Asteroids will play a key role in the development of a space economy and be the main driver in allowing humanity to become a flourishing multi-planetary species. Water from asteroids will fuel the in-space economy and habitation, by creating rocket fuel and consumable water from space, for space. Rare metals will increase Earth’s GDP when mined from asteroids in our Solar System – the very same objects that brought them to Earth in the first place."
Arkyd Astronautics was formed in November of 2010 in the U.S. It was reorganized and renamed "Planetary Resources" in 2012. Seattle, Washington was chosen as their base of operation. Planetary Resources opened the doors of its Seattle headquarters in 2011. They are working on low-cost avionics and software, attitude determination and control systems, space communications, high delta-V small satellite propulsion systems and space-based observation. They have developed partnerships and investor relations with major companies and government agencies in order to provide services that will pave the way towards their ultimate goal of mining asteroids.
In 2012, Planetary Resources released an overview of the first three satellites they were planning including the Arkyd Series 100 also know Leo Space Telescopes. The Arkyd 100s are going to be "Earth-observer and asteroid-locators." Earth imaging will be sold at a low cost and the satellites will search for asteroids to mine. The Arkyd Series 200, also known as "Interceptors," will be sent out to analyzed the physical characteristics of the targeted asteroids which will be within two and a half million to seven and half million miles of Earth. The Arkyd Series 300, also known as "Rendezvous Prospector," will rendezvous with targeted asteroids to collect detailed information such as the size, shape, rotation and density. They will also analyze surface and subsurface composition.
In 2013, Planetary Resources launched a successful Kickstarter campaign to crowdfund a new spacecraft called the Arkyd-100. In 2014, the Arkyd-3 was launched to test technologies for the Arkyd-100. Unfortunately, it was destroyed when the launch vehicle blew up. In July of 2015, a second Arkyd-3 was successfully placed in orbit from the International Space Station to carry out a 90-day mission.
The roadmap for the future of Planetary Resources includes a series of stages. The first stage is a survey and analysis of near-Earth asteroids to select the best targets for mining. These activities will be carried out by the Arkyd-100 satellites. A second stage will consist of sending survey probes to select which targeted asteroids will be surveyed, mapped, scanned and sampled. This will be done by the Arkyd-200 and Arkyd-300 satellites. Ultimately, they intend to set up a fully robotic mining operation on selected asteroids and return valuable minerals to Earth. Planetary Resources estimates that it will probably take at least a decade to realize their plans to mine asteroids.
Chris Lewicki, the President and Chief Engineer for Planetary Resources, speaking at the Epicenter of Space event recently, made a point of emphasizing that the commercial exploitation of space would need to be profitable at every stage in order to create a successful mature commercial space industry.
