Tag: Planetary Resources
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Luxembourg leaders will visit Seattle area to dig deeper into asteroid mining
Luxembourg’s Crown Prince Guillaume and Deputy Prime Minister Étienne Schneider will be leading a delegation from the tiny European nation on a trip to the Seattle area on Monday. The main attraction? Asteroid mining, of course. Last year, Planetary Resources struck a deal for $28 million in investment and grants from Luxembourg’s government and bankers. Planetary Resources,…
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Citing schedule slips, Spaceflight rebooks 89 satellites on SpaceX’s launch list
Spaceflight’s SHERPA carrier is designed to deploy scores of satellites. (Spaceflight Illustration) For more than a year, Seattle-based Spaceflight has been waiting to launch an array of 89 miniaturized satellites aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and deploy them in orbit from its innovative SHERPA carrier. Now the launch logistics company isn’t waiting any longer. All…
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Planetary Resources strikes $28 million pact with Luxembourg for asteroid mining
An artist’s conception shows the Arkyd 6 space telescope in orbit. (Credit: Planetary Resources) Planetary Resources says it has finalized a $28 million (€25 million) agreement with Luxembourg to ramp up its asteroid mining campaign. The deal calls for the tiny European nation’s government and one of its top banking institutions, the Société Nationale de Crédit…
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Why small satellites are big for startups
An artist’s conception shows Planetary Resources’ Arkyd 6 prototype Earth-observing satellite, which is due for its maiden launch this year. (Credit: Planetary Resources) Small satellites, and the startups that make them, are becoming a big deal – and there’s a fresh flurry of industry reports that explain why. The bottom line is that new types of…
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Space race heats up: Deep Space Industries plans to visit asteroid by 2020
An artist’s conception shows the Prospector 1 probe investigating an asteroid. (Credit DSI) One of the two big players in the asteroid mining market, Deep Space Industries, today unveiled its plan to land a 110-pound spacecraft on a near-Earth asteroid by 2020. The spacecraft, known as Prospector-1, would study the yet-to-be-selected asteroid to determine the value…
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Planetary Resources’ asteroid miners go international, starting with Luxembourg
An artist’s view shows one of Planetary Resources’ telescopes in orbit. (Credit: Planetary Resources) Planetary Resources says it will start ramping up an international asteroid-mining subsidiary in Luxembourg by the end of the year – and will think about expanding operations to other locales as well. The Luxembourg deal was announced last week, but many of the details are still…
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Bayer partners with Planetary Resources to use space data to boost agriculture on Earth
The Planetary Resources sign at its headquarters in Redmond, Wash. German chemical and pharmaceutical giant Bayer today inked a memorandum of understanding with Planetary Resources as part of a deal to utilize satellite images collected by the Redmond-based space startup. Bayer will use information from the crop-specific images to develop agricultural products as part of its Digital…
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‘Space selfie’ project canceled: Planetary Resources offers Kickstarter refunds
An artist’s conception shows how an Arkyd 100 space telescope would have taken a “space selfie” from orbit. (Credit: Planetary Resources via Kickstarter) REDMOND, Wash. – Three years ago, Planetary Resources raised more than $1.5 million on Kickstarter to build a space telescope that would let users snap selfies from orbit. Today, the company says it…
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Planetary Resources’ asteroid miners focus on Earth observation with $21 million in new funding
Planetary Resources’ Chris Lewicki and GeekWire’s Alan Boyle mug for the camera behind two Arkyd 6 satellites being tested for flight in Planetary Resources’ clean room. (GeekWire photo by Kevin Lisota) REDMOND, Wash. – Planetary Resources was founded as an asteroid mining company, but a fresh infusion of $21.1 million in investment puts the emphasis on…
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Tiny nation, big ambitions: Luxembourg wants to be the NASA of asteroid mining
An artist’s conception shows a spacecraft extracting materials from a near-Earth asteroid. (Credit: Spaceresources.lu) Luxembourg intends to one day become a major hub for deep-space commercial operations. The country announced Wednesday it plans to help foster the growth of an asteroid-mining industry. Luxembourg, with a population roughly the size of Albuquerque (562,000), said it is…