{"id":19342,"date":"2016-06-21T19:17:28","date_gmt":"2016-06-21T11:17:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/planetary-resources-asteroid-miners-go-international-starting-with-luxembourg\/"},"modified":"2016-06-21T19:17:28","modified_gmt":"2016-06-21T11:17:28","slug":"planetary-resources-asteroid-miners-go-international-starting-with-luxembourg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/planetary-resources-asteroid-miners-go-international-starting-with-luxembourg\/","title":{"rendered":"Planetary Resources\u2019 asteroid miners go international, starting with Luxembourg"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_251918\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-251918\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-251918 size-full-width\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/160525-arkyd-630x485.jpg\" alt=\"Planetary Resources telescope\" 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 view&nbsp;shows one of Planetary Resources\u2019&nbsp;telescopes in orbit. (Credit: Planetary Resources)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Planetary Resources says it will start ramping&nbsp;up an&nbsp;international asteroid-mining subsidiary in Luxembourg by the end of the year \u2013 and will think about&nbsp;expanding operations to other locales as well.<\/p>\n<p>The Luxembourg deal was announced last week, but many of the details are still to be determined, said Chris Lewicki, Planetary Resources\u2019 president and CEO.<\/p>\n<p>To refresh your memory from geography class, Luxembourg is a tiny nation wedged between Belgium, Germany and France. It\u2019s more than 5,000 miles away from&nbsp;Planetary Resources\u2019 headquarters in Redmond, Wash. So, why Luxembourg?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are looking at things that amplify our presence in Seattle,\u201d Lewicki told GeekWire today at the Space Frontier Foundation\u2019s NewSpace 2016 conference. By the end of the year, Planetary Resources plans to work out the details and make a \u201chandful of hires,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Money is a big factor: Under the terms of a memorandum of understanding, the government of Luxembourg will consider taking a minority stake in Planetary Resources\u2019 European subsidiary through a state-owned investment bank. Luxembourg also has agreed to provide an economic development package worth \u20ac25 million ($28 million) to support the European operation, Lewicki said.<\/p>\n<p>The package is part of Luxembourg\u2019s&nbsp;\u20ac200 million ($225 million) initiative to invest in&nbsp;ventures that aim to make use of space resources, including near-Earth asteroids. Last month, Luxembourg made a separate deal to support research and development for an asteroid-prospecting project that\u2019s being pursued by Deep Space Industries, which has its primary offices in California and Luxembourg.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Luxembourg Wants to Mine Asteroids!\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mtGxX-bEqB4?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>Planetary Resources recently raised $21 million in private investment for the development of an Earth-observation satellite system called Ceres. In the short term, Ceres&nbsp;could bring in revenue. In the longer term, the satellites could&nbsp;blaze a trail for identifying promising&nbsp;asteroids.<\/p>\n<p>Eventually, Lewicki\u2019s company plans to send robotic spacecraft to those asteroids and extract valuable materials&nbsp;\u2013 starting with water, which can be turned into rocket fuel and other essentials for space travelers.<\/p>\n<p>Planetary Resources Luxembourg is likely to help Ceres and future space-mining operations go global, Lewicki said. He joked that having a European operations center would avoid the need to \u201chave folks in Seattle take the night shift.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Within three or four years, Lewicki expects the Luxembourg operation to grow to around 50 employees. That\u2019s roughly equal to&nbsp;Planetary Resources\u2019 current total&nbsp;employment. By then, significantly more employees should be working in Redmond, Lewicki said.<\/p>\n<p>Will Luxembourg serve as a model for other international space-mining subsidiaries? \u201cIt\u2019s hard to say,\u201d Lewicki said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are a lot of business activities that happen where states or cities or municipalities incentivize a sports arena to be&nbsp;built,\u201d he said. \u201cGovernment is just doing this with a different type of business. They\u2019re incentivizing or creating a particular type of industry in their country, and I expect others to try and follow suit.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An artist\u2019s view&nbsp;shows one of Planetary Resources\u2019&nbsp;telescopes in orbit. (Credit: Planetary Resources) Planetary Resources says it will start ramping&nbsp;up an&nbsp;international asteroid-mining subsidiary in Luxembourg by the end of the year \u2013 and will think about&nbsp;expanding operations to other locales as well. The Luxembourg deal was announced last week, but many of the details are still [&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":[1519,291,3041,4820],"class_list":["post-19342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-asteroids","tag-commercial-space","tag-luxembourg","tag-planetary-resources"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19342"}],"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=19342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19342\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}