Luxembourg is stepping up efforts to become Europe’s center for space mining by buying a major stake in US-based asteroid miner Planetary Resources in a deal worth $28 million (€25 million) in investments. Prospector-X™ is the inaugural mission of the partnership between Deep Space Industries and the Luxembourg Government, as they work together to develop the technology needed to mine asteroids and build a supply chain of valuable resources in space. As with any mining project, the first stage in the harvest of space resources is prospecting.
The funding, which includes a direct investment of €12 million and grants for €13 million from the country’s government and bank Société Nationale de Crédit et d’Investissement (SNCI), aims to help Planetary Resources launch its first commercial asteroid prospecting mission by 2020, the Redmond, Washington firm said in a statement.
The agreement falls within the framework of Luxembourg’s SpaceResources.lu initiative, which goal is to boost exploration and the commercial utilization of resources from near earth objects, such as asteroids, the government said in a separate statement.
The funding, which includes direct investment and grants, aims to help Planetary Resources launch its first commercial asteroid prospecting mission by 2020.
As part of the deal, Planetary Resources is setting up a European headquarters in the country, which will conduct key research and development activities in support of its commercial asteroid prospecting capabilities, as well as support international business activities, the asteroid miner said.
The tiny European nation is one of the euro zone’s wealthiest countries and already has a long-standing space industry, playing a significant role in the development of satellite communications. In June, it announced the opening of a €200 million (US$221 million) line of credit for entrepreneurial space companies to set up their European headquarters within its borders.
Prior to date, Luxembourg reached an agreement with another US-based company, Deep Space Industries, which will be conducting missions to prospect for water and minerals in outer space. Both parties are currently developing Prospector-X, a small and experimental spacecraft that test technologies for prospecting and mining near Earth asteroids after 2020.
In the near future, Deep Space Industries intends to launch a small spacecraft to a Near Earth Asteroid for the purpose of assessing the target’s geotechnical properties and suitability for mining. This commercial deep space mission will require new technologies, in smaller packages, with more robust capabilities. These are the technologies currently being developed by Deep Space Industries; small satellite subsystems that are robust, agile, high-performance, and increasingly smaller in size.
When planning for any complex deep space mission, it is crucial to perform risk-reduction technology demonstrations in the familiar environment of low-Earth orbit. Prospector-X, an eXperimental small nano-spacecraft, will be used to test several key enabling technologies in advance of the first Deep Space Industries asteroid rendezvous mission. Some of the emerging technologies are Comet-1 thrusters, optical navigation and deep space avionics.
The Deep Space Industries will be using the Comet-1 line of thrusters that are simple, launch-safe, and cost-effective electrothermal propulsion systems that uses water as a propellant. Comet-1 thrusters are the ideal balance of cost and performance, occupying a place in the market between lowcost, low-performance cold gas and resistojets, and high-cost, high-performance monopropellant and electric systems. The Comet-1 design is scalable from CubeSats to small microsatellites, with a highly-flexible interface suitable for a wide range of spacecraft sizes.
The optical navigation system uses two-camera optical navigation system that enables proximity operations at asteroids or at close range to other targets. This vision system is developed jointly between Deep Space Industries and University of Luxembourg’s Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability, and Trust (SnT).
Their deep sea avionics is modular, scalable, and intrinsically radiation-tolerant. They combine the best of commercial technologies with rigorous screening and innovative design approaches to enable cost-effective, yet radiation-robust subsystems for deep space.