Mining raw materials from asteroids hundreds of millions of miles away from Earth may sound like science fiction, but the prospect is edging very close to reality. In fact, multiplecompanies have sprung up over the past few years with the sole purpose of engineering spacecraft to perform such an ambitious feat.
In 2015, the US Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act was passed, giving companies the rights to any materials that they extract from asteroids. The move gave companies that much more incentive to work toward finally mining them, all while revenue potential skyrocketed.
Within the last decade, people in the space industry have started to realize that mining raw materials or even frozen water from asteroids could prove to be an extremely lucrative industry in the near future. According to Asterank, a scientific and economic database of more than 600,000 asteroids, there are about 1,000 asteroids that could contain billions — if not trillions — of dollars in raw materials.
Metallic asteroids primarily contain iron and nickel, but some also have rare and valuable materials such as platinum, gold, and cobalt. Then there's the frozen water, which may not be valuable here on Earth but could be harvested and utilized for fuel synthesis or sustaining humans living on our moon or Mars in the future.
In 2012, a feasibility study at the California Institute of Technology concluded that the most practical method of mining an asteroid would be both challenging and costly. The study estimated that such an asteroid mining mission would cost a company roughly $2.5 billion, arguably the biggest reason why companies such as UK space startup Asteroid Mining Corporation have yet to mine any raw materials in outer space.
Mining an asteroid is a complex task, but researchers and asteroid mining companies alike seem to agree on the most practical way of going about it. Firstly, a spacecraft needs to rendezvous with a near-Earth asteroid and stop it from rotating using either lasers or thrusters.
Once the asteroid is stabilized, it would then be nudged into a trajectory that would move it into a stable orbit around Earth. A second mining spacecraft could then be launched from Earth to make contact with and begin to mine raw materials from the asteroid. The materials could then be sent back to Earth for processing.
Asteroid Mining Corporation has a goal of recovering around 20 tons of platinum from the near-Earth asteroid 1986 DA by the year 2035. The company's roadmap for this achievement consists of two separate missions, the first of which is called Project Drexciya and is scheduled to launch in 2027.
During this mission, a specialized spacecraft called Drexciya 1 will travel to and make contact with the metallic asteroid 1986 DA. The spacecraft will then begin locating areas of the asteroid that contain high concentrations of platinum in preparation for the following mining mission. The company estimates the development and production costs of Drexciya-1 to be in the ballpark of $300 million.
In 2035, Asteroid Mining Corporation plans to launch Asteroid Mining Probe One to 1986 DA for mining. Once the spacecraft arrives at the asteroid, it will use the data obtained by Drexciya 1 to begin mining 20 tons of platinum. According to the company, this equates to 10% of the current global annual platinum supply. If the mission is successful, the company hopes to offer similar mission contracts to future customers.
Another company with the goal of pioneering methods for mining asteroids was Planetary Resources. In four years, the company had gone from startup to raising $50 million from various investors including Google's Larry Page. What was unique and drew investors in was the company's highly experienced founding team, Chris Lewicki and Peter Diamandis. Lewicki had previously worked at NASA on projects such as the Mars Curiosity rover, and Diamandis had founded or cofounded many other space-related companies.
But even with its experienced founders, Planetary Resources later had funding problems and was acquired by blockchain company ConsenSys in 2018 as part of an asset purchase. The goal of mining asteroids ultimately proved to be out of reach as advancements in the field weren't happening quick enough to appease investors. The acquisition solidified just how difficult it was going to be to create a company with the exotic purpose of mining asteroids.
Early on, asteroid mining will likely become a necessity as we move rapidly toward establishing permanent bases on the moon and Mars. As these bases grow in size and number of occupants, requirements for water and some raw materials will inevitably rise. Having the capability to send those materials from nearby mined asteroids directly would be an immense advantage.
Further into the future, asteroid mining will also become essential to us here on Earth due to the inevitable depletion of resource reserves, especially when it comes to more rare materials like platinum.
Asteroid mining will be much more expensive than what we do on Earth. But like most things, it will become cheaper as we do more of it — so the sooner we can start, the better.
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