Planetary Resources

[Danderman]

http://www.planetaryresources.com/2013/06/planetary-resources-prepares-for-launch-of-the-arkyd-series-of-spacecraft/

Planetary Resources Prepares for Launch of the Arkyd Series of Spacecraft

Planetary Resources, Inc., the asteroid mining company, will advance its mission to mine resource-rich near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) by launching the first in its Arkyd Series of spacecraft – the A3 – into low-Earth orbit as early as April 2014.  The A3 is the Arkyd 100’s technology demonstrator, and the mission will provide for early testing and serve to validate the spacecraft’s core technology and software in the development of the program.

Planetary Resources is under contract with NanoRacks, through its Space Act Agreement with NASA, to release the A3 from the International Space Station’s Kibo airlock. “We are excited for the opportunity that this rapid launch option provides us to begin testing the avionics and control systems of the Arkyd Series spacecraft,” said Chris Lewicki, President and Chief Engineer, Planetary Resources, Inc.

[Danderman]

To keep this thread on track, ie about Planetary Resources and not about asteroids in general, I have generated a new thread about questions on detection of ore bodies from LEO:

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=32260.0

Since it is possible that PR may go out of business someday, but some other asteroid mining company might succeed, a thread specific to these questions would be useful over the long haul.

Plus, there are other companies out there that profess to be looking for asteroids.

I have listed a series of questions about the involved technologies that are yet to be answered in this thread.

[Robert Thompson]

$125 option, donated to promising freshmen.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

Less than 20 hours until the KS ends and the first stretch goal (at $1.3M) has been reached.

So if you've been thinking of backing, today's your last chance: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1458134548/arkyd-a-space-telescope-for-everyone-0

[Galactic Penguin SST]

The Sir Richard Branson has just put $100k into the kickstarter..... http://www.planetaryresources.com/2013/06/in-the-final-hours-were-100k-closer-to-2m-sir-richard-branson-supports-the-arkyd/

[Chris Bergin]

Remember, there is a big thread about the fundraiser in the live section.

[Warren Platts]

The CIM just released a video of the plenary session at their last convention, where Chris Lewicki is on the panel with several conventional mining bigwigs. He starts at around minute 55. Says that world's first trillionaire will come from activities in space...

http://frischkornav.gowebcasting.com/events/cim/2013/05/06/livestream-cim-convention-2013-plenary/play/stream/3868

[Danderman]

I should note that the Kickstarter news kind of killed the buzz here for Planetary Resources. Once everyone realized that PR was relying on small "donations" for cash, the idea that the company would be sending out asteroid missions Real Soon Now kind of fizzled.

Perhaps PR has a strategy of laying low, doing their homework, looking for targets, and then expanding with fleets of spacecraft to explore targets, but I don't think there are great expectations here for something big any time soon.

2013 is kind of shaping up as a year where previously announced big plans are coming back to Earth, but quasi-established players are making progress.

[QuantumG]

If you say so, man. They're launching their 3U cubesat next year and their first operational telescope shouldn't be too far behind. Compared to, say, Virgin Galactic, they're moving forward at a good pace.

[go4mars]

Kickstarter news kind of killed the buzz here for Planetary Resources.

I was just thinking about these guys on my walk in to work today.  I believe that their business is based on the assumption that within the next few years, Moore's Law will allow for optical interferometry.  Everything they do until then is building toward that; getting experience with spacecraft, optics, thinking about interferometry...     

What were your expectations for PR in 2013?

[RonM]

If you say so, man. They're launching their 3U cubesat next year and their first operational telescope shouldn't be too far behind. Compared to, say, Virgin Galactic, they're moving forward at a good pace.

That's a good point. Once PR gets an operational telescope they can start charging for observation time and have a revenue stream. Then they can afford to put up more telescopes. They can be a successful business and never get around to mining asteroids. Sure, asteroid mining is their goal, but once they use their telescopes to gather data on asteroids they might decide mining asteroids is not economically feasible at the moment.

Baby steps, as the saying goes.

I was just thinking about these guys on my walk in to work today.  I believe that their business is based on the assumption that within the next few years, Moore's Law will allow for optical interferometry.  Everything they do until then is building toward that; getting experience with spacecraft, optics, thinking about interferometry...

BTW, optical interferometry is extremely difficult. I doubt PR would be able to pull it off. It requires incredibly precise and stable optical systems. No amount of processing power is going to help if your optics are not up to spec.

[Blackjax]

PR says they will equip their Arkyd 100 series with a cutting edge Laser Communication system. Will they be able to use multiple Arkyd's as an Interferometer utilizing the Communication system?
If they can do that they can exponentially increase their optical resolution.

I'd say no: to perform optical interferometry requires extremely precise beam combination and extremely precise control over the effective separation of elements of the interferometer which means optical delay lines to compensate for distance variations.  And these need to be precise down to (from memory) 1/4 wavelength . . .

I've been wondering about the interferometry possibilities myself.  Picture one Arkyd in the center (pointed towards earth for communications purposes) of several more deployed out from it on the same sort of booms that Altius was showing off for their stickyboom and inside each boom is a fiberoptic communications link that unspooled along with the boom as it was extended.  The mount on the end of each boom could contain high precision pointing and positioning equipment for the final adjustment to the telescope.

Just a thought.

[simonbp]

Yeah, no. We are *long* way from being able to do in-space optical interferometery. It's not really going to be practical until computers are fast enough to capture and record the entire waveform, allowing the computer to reconstruct the image digitally. We can do this with radio (that's how the Very Long Baseline Array works), but optical signals have way too much information to be able to do this today.

There is plenty of science that can be done with an Arykd-sized space telescope (and believe me, I know several organizations which are interested in buying one), but not optical interferometery. I'm not sure why people seem to fixate on that so much.

[Blackjax]

Yeah, no. We are *long* way from being able to do in-space optical interferometery. It's not really going to be practical until computers are fast enough to capture and record the entire waveform, allowing the computer to reconstruct the image digitally. We can do this with radio (that's how the Very Long Baseline Array works), but optical signals have way too much information to be able to do this today.

There is plenty of science that can be done with an Arykd-sized space telescope (and believe me, I know several organizations which are interested in buying one), but not optical interferometery. I'm not sure why people seem to fixate on that so much.

I think it is largely because there is appeal in the idea of a largely COTS based telescope that offers fairly impressive capabilities, and yet will fit in a modest sized payload fairing and perhaps even fly as a secondary payload.

Any chance you could point me (and the others who keep pestering with this kind of question) to some sort of laymans explanation of the "capture and record the entire waveform, allowing the computer to reconstruct the image digitally" problem?

I don't come from a science background but I am open to learning.

[RonM]

Any chance you could point me (and the others who keep pestering with this kind of question) to some sort of laymans explanation of the "capture and record the entire waveform, allowing the computer to reconstruct the image digitally" problem?

I don't come from a science background but I am open to learning.

Take a look at Georgia State University's CHARA Array at Mount Wilson http://www.chara.gsu.edu/CHARA/index.php. Click on the Pictorial Overview to download the PDF and then you'll see how complicated optical interferometry is.

With long radio wavelengths, atomic clocks can be used to accurately record the moment of the observations and later combine the data from radio telescopes from around the world and in space. With much shorter optical wavelengths you have to physically combine the light from the telescopes at the moment of observation. That is a very difficult task.

[go4mars]

It's not really going to be practical until computers are fast enough to capture and record the entire waveform, allowing the computer to reconstruct the image digitally.

I agree with this part.  Hence my comment about Moore's Law.  I read Diamandis's book "Abundance".  Between that, and their stated intentions to do "optical communication at interplanetary distances" (extremely precise positioning) I would be very surprised if it were not on their things to do list. 

[Danderman]

http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/10/first-planetary-resources-arkyd-100.html

" The A3 is the Arkyd 100’s technology demonstrator, and the mission will provide for early testing and serve to validate the spacecraft’s core technology and software in the development of the program.

Planetary Resources is under contract with NanoRacks, through its Space Act Agreement with NASA, to release the A3 from the International Space Station’s Kibo airlock."

[Robotbeat]

http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/10/first-planetary-resources-arkyd-100.html

" The A3 is the Arkyd 100’s technology demonstrator, and the mission will provide for early testing and serve to validate the spacecraft’s core technology and software in the development of the program.

Planetary Resources is under contract with NanoRacks, through its Space Act Agreement with NASA, to release the A3 from the International Space Station’s Kibo airlock."

Danderman, what is the advantage for Arkyd of deploying from Kibo?

[jongoff]

Had a good opportunity last week to get a "hot wash" on the Planetary Resources kickstarter from earlier this year. The guy behind the campaign was one of the other coaches at the NewSpace BPC. It definitely reinforced my opinion that the campaign was more about getting community involvement than it was about raising funds for the company. That whole "they've got billionaires but they're trying to raise money from Joe-schmoes" argument glosses over the non-obvious costs involved in running a campaign like this.

~Jon

[jongoff]

http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/10/first-planetary-resources-arkyd-100.html

" The A3 is the Arkyd 100’s technology demonstrator, and the mission will provide for early testing and serve to validate the spacecraft’s core technology and software in the development of the program.

Planetary Resources is under contract with NanoRacks, through its Space Act Agreement with NASA, to release the A3 from the International Space Station’s Kibo airlock."

Danderman, what is the advantage for Arkyd of deploying from Kibo?

Soft-pack on the way up, on-orbit checkout, slightly cheaper than Spaceflight Services secondary payloads, and more frequent ride opportunities.

You don't get as long of a life-time that way, but the other advantages are enough that NanoRacks has racked up a significant backlog of customers, from what I've heard...

~Jon