{"id":19183,"date":"2016-11-03T17:28:36","date_gmt":"2016-11-03T09:28:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/planetary-resources-strikes-28-million-pact-with-luxembourg-for-asteroid-mining\/"},"modified":"2016-11-03T17:28:36","modified_gmt":"2016-11-03T09:28:36","slug":"planetary-resources-strikes-28-million-pact-with-luxembourg-for-asteroid-mining","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/planetary-resources-strikes-28-million-pact-with-luxembourg-for-asteroid-mining\/","title":{"rendered":"Planetary Resources strikes $28 million pact with Luxembourg for asteroid mining"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_251918\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-251918\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-251918\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/160525-arkyd-630x485.jpg\" alt=\"Arkyd 6\" width=\"630\" height=\"485\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/160525-arkyd-630x485.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/160525-arkyd-768x591.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/160525-arkyd-1240x955.jpg 1240w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/160525-arkyd.jpg 1999w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-251918\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">An artist\u2019s conception shows the Arkyd 6 space telescope in orbit. (Credit: Planetary Resources)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Planetary Resources says it has finalized a $28 million (\u20ac25 million) agreement with Luxembourg to ramp up its asteroid mining campaign.<\/p>\n<p>The deal calls for the tiny European nation\u2019s government and one of its top banking institutions, the&nbsp;Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 Nationale de Cr\u00e9dit et d\u2019Investissement, to provide&nbsp;\u20ac12 million ($13.5 million) in direct capital investment and&nbsp;\u20ac13 million ($14.5 million) in grants, Planetary Resources announced today.<\/p>\n<p>George Schmit, an advisory board member of Luxembourg\u2019s SpaceResources.lu initiative, is joining the company\u2019s board of directors. Planetary Resources, which is based in Redmond, Wash., will also establish a European headquarters in Luxembourg.<\/p>\n<p>The agreement follows through on a memorandum of understanding that was announced in June.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_286686\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-286686\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-286686\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/161103-planetary-resources-luxembourg-630x439.jpg\" alt=\"Lewicki and Schneider\" width=\"630\" height=\"439\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/161103-planetary-resources-luxembourg-630x439.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/161103-planetary-resources-luxembourg.jpg 656w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-286686\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Planetary Resources President and CEO Chris Lewicki and Luxembourg Deputy Prime Minister Etienne Schneider celebrate their partnership.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cWe are excited in welcoming the Grand Duchy as a partner and an investor,\u201d Planetary Resources President and CEO Chris Lewicki said in a news release. \u201cJust as the country\u2019s vision and initiative propelled the satellite communications industry through its public-private partnerships, this funding and support will fast-track our business \u2014 advancing and building upon our substantial accomplishments.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne Schneider, Luxembourg\u2019s deputy prime minister, said the deal demonstrates his country\u2019s \u201cstrong commitment to support the national space sector by attracting innovative activities in space resource utilization and other related areas.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This isn\u2019t Luxembourg\u2019s first foray into the space industry: In 1985, the government became one of the founding shareholders in the SES satellite telecom company, which is headquartered in Luxembourg.<\/p>\n<p>The government is also partnering with another asteroid mining venture, California-based Deep Space Industries.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Tour of Planetary Resources with CEO Chris Lewicki\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/W89bwFbpcjM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Planetary Resources is developing spacecraft that are designed to survey near-Earth asteroids for potentially valuable resources, Even&nbsp;the water ice on asteroids can be converted into fuel and for interplanetary trips.<\/p>\n<p>The company had its first experimental mini-satellite launched last year, and it\u2019s getting an infrared-imaging&nbsp;satellite called Arkyd 6 ready to go into Earth orbit next year.<\/p>\n<p>Arkyd 6 is designed to blaze the trail for a constellation of Earth-observing satellites known as Ceres, as well as more sophisticated spacecraft that can analyze and eventually extract materials from asteroids.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe plan to launch the first commercial asteroid prospecting mission by 2020,\u201d Lewicki said, \u201cand look forward to collaborating with our European partner in this pivotal new industry.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An artist\u2019s conception shows the Arkyd 6 space telescope in orbit. (Credit: Planetary Resources) Planetary Resources says it has finalized a $28 million (\u20ac25 million) agreement with Luxembourg to ramp up its asteroid mining campaign. The deal calls for the tiny European nation\u2019s government and one of its top banking institutions, the&nbsp;Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 Nationale de Cr\u00e9dit [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4927,1519,291,3041,4820],"class_list":["post-19183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-asteroid-mining","tag-asteroids","tag-commercial-space","tag-luxembourg","tag-planetary-resources"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19183"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19183\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}