Before DSI begins mining asteroids, they are earning their stellar reputation by selling their asteroid spacecraft equipment to commercial customers closer to home. They have spent the last few years building clean, launch-safe propulsion systems for satellite constellations, notably for Virginia-based customer HawkEye 360’s first pathfinder cluster, which will detect and locate a broad range of radio transmissions from low-Earth orbit, which has great implications for transportation infrastructure monitoring. The first three HawkEye spacecraft, for which DSI is the mission prime, will launch in late 2017 on-board Spaceflight’s SSO-A rideshare. By 2020, DSI intends to fly its first asteroid microsatellite, called Prospector-1, which the DSI team is actively working on today. This spacecraft will start in LEO and make its own way to a destination of interest using a second-generation launch-safe, high-thrust propulsion system proprietary to DSI.
Doug Jones joins Deep Space Industries to lead development of next generation propulsion systems.Deep Space Industries is pleased to announce that Doug Jones, formerly chief test engineer at XCOR, is joining the company’s growing team as director of propulsion systems.“We see Doug as one of the top rocket engineers in the country, and a great addition to our first-class team of small-spacecraft engineers,” said Bill Miller, the chief executive officer of Deep Space Industries. “He will be helping us develop the high performance, inexpensive propulsion that is critical to radically lowering the cost of deep space exploration.”Mr. Jones has designed, built and tested over a dozen different rocket designs for a wide range of customers, including two manned vehicles. Doug has decades of aerospace engineering experience ranging from liquid rocket engine design to vehicle system optimization, and has flown aboard a rocket aircraft multiple times while serving as flight test engineer during the development of the XCOR X-Racer.“Doug Jones is joining DSI at the perfect moment to lead our in-house development of the high-performance propulsion system for our Prospector series of deep space missions,” said Grant Bonin, DSI’s chief technology officer. “We couldn’t be more excited.”
Deep Space Industries to provide Comet satellite propulsion for Astro DigitalDeep Space Industries announced today that it has signed a contract with Astro Digital to provide several CometTM water-based satellite propulsion systems. Comet is a simple, launch-safe, and cost-effective electrothermal propulsion system that uses water as a propellant and can be customized for nearly any small satellite application.“We chose DSI’s propulsion solution because of the team’s ability to deliver a unique and relatively large microsat propulsion system on an incredibly aggressive schedule,” explained Chris Biddy, chief executive officer of Astro Digital. “We are quite impressed by the Comet’s scalable nature and ease of integration.”Comet is unique in that it uses water as propellant. This is especially important for Deep Space Industries’ future asteroid mining plans, as water will be among the first resources mined from asteroids. In the meantime, this propulsion system is efficient, affordable, and easy to use for small satellites that will stay much closer to home, for customers such as Astro Digital.“Astro Digital is a fantastic organization. We are proud to partner with their team on this and many other projects in the future, “commented Bill Miller, chief executive officer of Deep Space Industries. “Comet has been very successful in the market and we are adding new customers almost monthly at this point.”About Astro DigitalAstro Digital (AD) is enabling big data analytics from space. We monitor Earth from space with our constellation of multi-spectral Landmapper satellites and a dedicated software platform for imagery analysis and distribution. With a team of engineers, developers and data scientists based on NASA’s Moffett Field, we’re monitoring commercially active land use to model global change and analyze local activity for a variety of business needs. For more information, visit: www.astrodigital.comAbout Deep Space IndustriesDeep Space Industries (DSI) is dedicated to making space resources available to fuel mankind’s expansion into space. We are developing a new type of spacecraft, and innovative propulsion technologies that dramatically lower the cost of access to Earth orbit and beyond. Our first step towards that goal has been to create new propulsion technologies that can extend the life and capabilities of small satellites. Deep Space Industries is headquartered in Silicon Valley, California, with offices in Florida, and in Luxembourg.
Comet is a simple, launch-safe, and cost-effective electrothermal propulsion system that uses water as a propellant and offers the ideal balance of cost and performance.
Deep Space Industries (DSI) announced today that it has signed a contract to provide its Comet water-based satellite propulsion systems for the BlackSky Earth observation constellation of smallsats. DSI will provide an initial block of 20 water thrusters for the BlackSky satellites which are scheduled to start launching later this year.
Space resources company co-founder sets sights on next wave of space startupsby Jeff Foust — April 25, 2018WASHINGTON — A longtime space advocate is stepping away from the space resources company he helped found more than five years ago and now plans to help develop the next generation of space startups.
DSI, based in Silicon Valley, announced April 17 raising a Series A round of more than $3.5 million from a group of private investors.
With this and DSI rival Planetary Resources being bought out by, of all things, a blockchain firm last year, is it fair to say that asteroid mining is basically a non-starter at this point in time?
All in good time. 🙂☄️🛰
Valid question, though. Were these guys just a few years too early or is this just not a good idea at all? I think the former.
Quote from: Lar on 01/02/2019 12:41 amValid question, though. Were these guys just a few years too early or is this just not a good idea at all? I think the former. I think the big thing is that there were too many missing pieces between here and being able to profitably mine asteroids. A bit one being the lack of current customers that were using materials in-space that could be sourced from asteroids. Take the water/propellant thing--without refuelable rocket stages (even ULA is only lip-service in that realm) or depots, it's kind of hard to take that seriously. And for other raw materials, without people actually manufacturing stuff in space that needs them, most of those also look like a stretch. Now, if we were say 5-10yrs down the road, and depots existed, and at least a few rocket companies were using them, and at least 2-3 companies were starting to do in-space manufactured persistent platforms, then all of the sudden it would both be a) cheaper to access asteroids or the moon to mine them in the first place, and b) there would be a much clearer market for the resulting resources.So yeah, I think they (and the lunar resource companies like MoonEx) are just premature, not that they'll never be a valid business idea.~Jon
NB DSI have water fuel bus capable of 5km/s with 10kg payload. Idea was to market it for smallsats but also use it themselves for asteriod exploration. Bradfords are interested in it for smallsats so it does keep door open for asteriod mining. By selling water based proplusions they are actually creating a market for water in space.
And Bradford Industries belong to American Industrial Acquisition Corporation https://aiac.com/aiac-portfolio-companies/
American Industrial Acquisition Corporation and its subsidiaries and affiliates (“AIAC”) is a privately held industrial investment portfolio with a long term mission to build enduring businesses.Established in 1996, our portfolio consists of 78 manufacturing and distribution sites with over 8,500 employees in 24 countries in North America, Europe, and Asia. Total annual revenues exceed $1.6 billion. We own over 6.5 million square feet of industrial real estate and hold the exclusive, perpetual license to harvest 22 million acres of Canadian timberland.AIAC has purchased and operated manufacturing units of Ahlstrom, Allegion, Astellas, AstraZeneca, Boeing, Carlyle Group, Constellium, GSK, Jabil Circuit, Johnson Controls, Kodak, Lockheed Martin, Merck, Moog, Northrop Grumman, Novartis, Novelis, Pfizer, Raytheon, The Riverside Company, Sandvik, Siemens, SSC, Tolko, UCB Pharma, United Technologies and other large multinational corporations. In addition to purchasing units of large multinational public companies, AIAC purchases the equity and debt of privately held companies.