There's that study saying that getting going on Asteroid Mining (if you assume SpaceX launch costs and not ULA costs) is no more than a major third world country project, billions or low teens, but not hundreds, before you are getting similar returns. ...
Quote from: Lar on 03/12/2018 06:01 pmThere's that study saying that getting going on Asteroid Mining (if you assume SpaceX launch costs and not ULA costs) is no more than a major third world country project, billions or low teens, but not hundreds, before you are getting similar returns. ...The problem is, PR is flying LEO cubesats at best, and it's a long road from here to mining.Meanwhile the company that pollutes all other threads is fielding an interplanetary vessel whose very existence is much more interesting to anyone wanting to mine asteroids.So while there may be players interested in this trade, PR is not necessarily their partner of choice.
Quote from: meekGee on 03/13/2018 02:16 amQuote from: Lar on 03/12/2018 06:01 pmThere's that study saying that getting going on Asteroid Mining (if you assume SpaceX launch costs and not ULA costs) is no more than a major third world country project, billions or low teens, but not hundreds, before you are getting similar returns. ...The problem is, PR is flying LEO cubesats at best, and it's a long road from here to mining.Meanwhile the company that pollutes all other threads is fielding an interplanetary vessel whose very existence is much more interesting to anyone wanting to mine asteroids.So while there may be players interested in this trade, PR is not necessarily their partner of choice.SpaceX is going to need partners, and prospecting is initially much better done with a cubesat flyby than landing Bruce Willis on it.Or, of course, add a teeny engine and a big tank, and rendevous to that cubesat, and suddenly it becomes able to rendevous and map, not flyby.
Quote from: speedevil on 03/13/2018 02:33 amQuote from: meekGee on 03/13/2018 02:16 amQuote from: Lar on 03/12/2018 06:01 pmThere's that study saying that getting going on Asteroid Mining (if you assume SpaceX launch costs and not ULA costs) is no more than a major third world country project, billions or low teens, but not hundreds, before you are getting similar returns. ...The problem is, PR is flying LEO cubesats at best, and it's a long road from here to mining.Meanwhile the company that pollutes all other threads is fielding an interplanetary vessel whose very existence is much more interesting to anyone wanting to mine asteroids.So while there may be players interested in this trade, PR is not necessarily their partner of choice.SpaceX is going to need partners, and prospecting is initially much better done with a cubesat flyby than landing Bruce Willis on it.Or, of course, add a teeny engine and a big tank, and rendevous to that cubesat, and suddenly it becomes able to rendevous and map, not flyby.There's a direct analogy to a Mars program here.You can send a "prospecting cubesat" with 100W of power that will run some power-starved instruments, give you a few results that you can write speculative papers on, and then a few years later you send another one, and so on till the end of time.Or, you can land a geologist with a rock hammer in several spots, gather samples, analyze on the ship, do follow ups, and come back with enough data to make big decisions.Mining companies think large-scale. The second option will be much more appealing to them.Even for the case of a "mapping" vessel, you want a large beast with plenty of dV to visit many asteroids, and powerful instruments - and for that you need a transportation system. Again. It all starts with transportation.If PR is not getting interest, it's because if you truly believe in their vision, then they have little to bring to the table in that context. It's not enough to believe in a certain future. You need to "secure" it.
APRIL 24, 2018Mission Success: Arkyd-6 Tests Key Technologies For Commercial Space Resource ExplorationOn January 12, 2018, we launched the Arkyd-6, a 6U CubeSat, a demonstration platform for technology intended to detect water resources in space. The launch on the Indian PSLV C40 was spectacular and within hours after our spacecraft reached its polar Earth orbit, the team began to regularly receive healthy telemetry from the spacecraft.The spacecraft was designed, manufactured, tested and integrated almost entirely in house. Our Redmond facilities provided the team the opportunity to prototype and develop the hardware all under one roof.In the weeks following launch, the team worked tirelessly in Redmond managing the mission. Even though the spacecraft was fully autonomous and able to execute all functions independently, it communicated with our team at every critical check point.We are excited to share that the Arkyd-6 has satisfied all of its mission requirements. The spacecraft successfully demonstrated its distributed computing system, communications, attitude control system, power generation and storage with deployable solar arrays and batteries, star tracker & reaction wheels, and the first commercial mid-wave infrared (MWIR) imager operated in space.Our MWIR instrument is a broadband imager spanning 3 to 5 microns within the infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum. This region is sensitive to the presence of water – including that in hydrated minerals – and thermal energy, allowing it to see things not visible to any other private satellite in space. During the mission, the imager was used as a tool to search for the presence of water and other economic signatures on Earth, but our focus is to find the presence of water beyond Earth.An example of our MWIR imager’s capability is this image (below) taken by the Arkyd-6 of a refinery in Algeria. The imager was able to capture hot spots or thermal signatures of the refinery flame towers, where all other commercial images of this same area would be of a non-descript desert landscape.The Arkyd-6 is a part of Planetary Resources’ research and development work to create an instrument capable of detecting water on near-Earth asteroids. The data obtained from this mission, along with the experience gained from building and operating the Arkyd-6 will assist in the development of the Arkyd-301, our next spacecraft platform.Chris LewickiPresident and CEOPlanetary Resources
Planetary Resources Arkyd-6 orbital MWIR image of a refinery in Algeria
For a time, the company shifted its focus to Earth observation, but Lewicki said he and his teammates “made a risky and aggressive choice to double down on asteroid exploration” last year.They were emboldened by a number of positive developments, including a close partnership with Luxembourg’s government and business leaders. They also identified a number of new investors, including a mining company that was in line to lead a fresh funding round.Unfortunately, the round failed to come together, and “we didn’t have the funding coming in to support continued technological development,” Lewicki said.That forced a sharp reduction in Planetary Resources’ workforce. How sharp? Lewicki declined to say, but LinkedIn’s listings show that a number of employees have moved on to Blue Origin, Amazon and other companies.
For a time, the company shifted its focus to Earth observation, but Lewicki said he and his teammates “made a risky and aggressive choice to double down on asteroid exploration” last year.
QuoteFor a time, the company shifted its focus to Earth observation, but Lewicki said he and his teammates “made a risky and aggressive choice to double down on asteroid exploration” last year.If they've already gone through 50 million USD in 6 years, how were they going to stay solvent until revenue from asteroid exploration came in? I suppose they were counting on getting awarded scientific missions from government space agencies?Revenue from asteroid mining is most likely several times those 6 years away, where should those hundreds of millions of USD have come from?Sidenote: All those billionaire backers announced in 2012 don't seem to have done them much good.
I said it here before - this company made no financial sense whatsoever, ever. The gap between ambitions and capability was just stupendous. They were talking about mining asteroids, but were capable of maybe cubesat telescopes.These two end points simply don't connect, and it's not even a matter how far into the future you're looking.And this is from someone who believes an asteroid-based industrial base is absolutely in our future, and closer than most people think... But not before you have large-scale low-cost launch capabilities, and a need for space-based structures that are just too expensive to launch from either Earth or Mars.
Their competitor Deep Space Industries is using bootstrap approach and seems to be working for them. Developed a thruster that uses super heated water, that addresses safety issues of secondary payloads. Not only does revenue from sales help keep them going, it also create a fleet of satellites that can be refuelled with ISRU water. DSI required the thruster for their mining vehicles, allows vehicles to refuel themselves.
It's unfortunate that despite PR having billionaire backers
Quote from: DigitalMan on 06/28/2018 03:20 pmIt's unfortunate that despite PR having billionaire backers Who? When they launched they had billionaire advisers, not backers. There was some angels involved. Now they have government funding from Luxembourg. Here's the cap table.
Quote from: QuantumG on 06/28/2018 11:39 pmQuote from: DigitalMan on 06/28/2018 03:20 pmIt's unfortunate that despite PR having billionaire backers Who? When they launched they had billionaire advisers, not backers. There was some angels involved. Now they have government funding from Luxembourg. Here's the cap table.I could be mistaken but here is what they list:Founding Investors: RENA SHULSKY DAVID LARRY PAGE (you could probably stop here he can fund it himself)RAM SHRIRAMERIC E. SCHMIDT, PH.D.SIR RICHARD BRANSONROSS PEROT, JR.CHARLES SIMONYI, PH.D.
