In April 2023, an artificial satellite the size of a microwave oven was launched into space. Its goal is to prepare asteroids for mining. The mission, courtesy of a company called AstroForge, has encountered problems but is part of a new wave of would-be asteroid miners hoping to turn space resources into cash.
There are many potential uses for space-mined materials. Asteroids contain metals such as platinum and cobalt, which are used in electronics and electric car batteries, respectively. These materials are abundant on Earth, but they may be more concentrated on asteroids than on mountainsides, making them easier to scrape out. And proponents argue that scraping in space could reduce negative effects on space. mining It’s on this earth. Space resource advocates also want to explore the possibilities of other materials. What if space ice could be used as propellant for spacecraft and rockets? Space dirt for astronaut housing structures and radiation shielding?
A previous company made strides toward a similar goal, but it went bankrupt about five years ago. But in the years since those first colleagues left the stage, “interest in this field has exploded,” said Angel Abdomadrid, director of the Space Resources Center at the Colorado School of Mines.
Much attention has been focused on the moon, as countries plan to set up outposts on the moon and supplies will be needed. For example, NASA has ambitions to train astronauts. base camp within the next 10 years.Meanwhile, China wants international moon discovery research station.
Still, the gravitational pull of space stones remains strong, and new companies are expected. Economic conditions have improved as rocket launch costs have fallen, as has the regulatory environment, with countries enacting laws specifically permitting space mining. But only time will tell whether the 10-year prospector will cash in on where other prospectors have struck at a loss, or whether it is buried in business plans.
Asteroid mining companies need one key ingredient to get started: optimism. The hope that they might be able to start a new industry that is out of this world. “Not many humans are wired to work like that,” said Matt Gearich, co-founder and CEO of AstroForge. The company has yet to come close to mining anything since its demo mission in April 2023.
But what he and his colleagues hope to extract is platinum group metals, some of which are used in devices such as catalytic converters that reduce gas emissions. On the other hand, materials such as platinum and iridium are used in electronics. There are also opportunities in green technology. new push The aim is to produce platinum-based batteries with greater storage capacity that could be installed in electric vehicles and energy storage systems.
To further the company’s goals, AstroForge’s first mission will carry a purification system designed to extract platinum from simulated asteroid material and simulants, demonstrating that metalworking can occur in space. I did.
Things didn’t go as planned. Once the small spacecraft was in orbit, it had difficulty identifying and communicating with the dozens of other newly launched satellites. The solar panels that power the spacecraft were not initially deployed. And satellites initially suffered from wobbles that interfered with communications. They were unable to perform a mock extraction.
The company will soon embark on a second mission with a different goal. The idea is to hit an asteroid with a slingshot and take a photo. This is a surveying project that could help the company understand what valuable materials are present on certain asteroids.
Another company called TransAstra sells telescopes and software designed to detect objects like asteroids moving through the sky. Chinese company Origin Space has an asteroid observation satellite in Earth orbit where it tests mining-related technology. Meanwhile, Colorado company Karman+ plans to fly directly to the asteroid in 2026 to test its drilling rig.
Together, TransAstra, Karman+, and AstroForge have received tens of millions of dollars in venture capital funding to achieve their ultimate goal of extracting metals from space rocks.
Another company with similar objectives, simply called Asteroid Mining Corporation Limited, wants to rely less on outside investment in the long term. In fact, such dependence helped sink early companies. Instead, founder and CEO Mitch Hunter Scullion is focusing the company’s early work on terrestrial applications with quick returns to help fund future work in broader space. . In 2021, the company partnered with the Japan-based Tohoku University Space Robot Research Laboratory to develop space robots.
Together, they built a six-legged robot called the Space Capable Asteroid Robotic Explorer (SCAR-E). It is designed to operate in a microgravity environment, allowing it to crawl over uneven surfaces and capture data and samples of whatever is there. The company is planning a demonstration mission to analyze lunar soil in 2026.
But for now, SCAR-E will remain on Earth and inspect the ship’s hull.According to one market research platform, this is approximately $13 billion dollar market Globally, compared to the asteroid mining market, it is currently $0 because no one has mined asteroids yet.
Such ground-based work could provide the company with a source of income before and during its spaceflight. “I think every asteroid mining company realizes that they’re out of money, their investors are tired, and they have to do something,” Hunter Scullion said.
“In my opinion, we will never be able to mine asteroids unless we build something meaningful on Earth,” he added.