It’s been an exciting couple of weeks for the future of deep-space travel.
For one thing, if you’ve ever wanted to be an asteroid miner, you might soon get your
chance!
Deep Space Industries, an asteroid mining company from California, just announced their
plans for the first-ever commercial deep-space mining mission.
The mission, called Prospector-1, will travel to a near-Earth asteroid to check out its
potential resources as early as 2019.
Asteroids are full of useful materials metals like platinum and water, which can be used
as fuel for spacecraft.
Since the beginning of the space age, we’ve been spending millions of dollars to launch
heavy fuel and supplies into orbit.
Sending only a kilogram into orbit can cost as much as $25,000!
Deep Space Industries and other asteroid mining companies are working toward a world where,
instead of launching everything from the ground, ships can just stock up at mining stations
already orbiting Earth.
While we’ve visited asteroids before, Prospector-1 will be the first commercial mission to check
out an asteroid specifically for its resources.
Although they haven’t announced a target yet, the asteroid will probably have to contain
enough water ice to make it worth the trip.
It’ll also have to be close enough to the sun and Earth that the craft’s solar panels
and communications systems will work well.
Once it gets there, Prospector-1 will use visual and infrared scanning to search both
on and below the asteroid’s surface for water and other materials.
When it’s done with mapping, the craft will land on the asteroid to continue studying
its geology.
We can use radar to study asteroids from Earth, but even asteroids in the same class can still
be very different.
So Prospector-1 is going to get a first-hand look.
The craft is small — only about 50 kilograms — and uses Deep Space Industries’ Comet
propulsion system to move around.
With the Comet system, Prospector-1 fires jets of superheated water vapor to generate
thrust.
Since it uses water as fuel, the hope is that in the future, Prospector spacecraft could
mine their own water to power their journey.
Although this is only a prospecting mission — hence the name — the company plans to
already be mining resources in the 2020s.
Depending on its final destination, Prospector-1 could launch any time between 2019 and 2022.
Meanwhile, a test mission, called Prospector-X, will launch in 2017 to try out some of the
mission’s technology in low-Earth orbit.
With resources orbiting around the sun on millions of asteroids, asteroid mining could
make exploring the solar system that much easier — and, let’s be honest, that much
cooler.
Meanwhile, NASA is moving forward with its plans to send humans to Mars — no mining
required.
And last week, the space agency announced that they’ve selected six companies to design
prototype deep space habitats, spaces where astronauts traveling to Mars will live and
work on their journey.
Missions to the moon took only a few days, so crews could live in the smaller Apollo
modules.
But it takes 6-8 months to reach Mars.
Astronauts will blast off in the Orion capsule, which is currently under development, but
Orion is too small to give crews the space or supplies they need for traveling months
or years at a time.
Ideally, a deep space habitat would attach to Orion through an airlock or a tunnel and
would provide plenty of space to eat, sleep, and move around after launch.
The six companies, Bigelow Aerospace, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, NanoRocks, Orbital ATK, and
the Sierra Nevada Corporation, will spend the next two years designing habitat prototypes
and conducting concept studies.
The companies will share a total of $65 million from NASA’s Next-STEP program, and they
might get more funding as the projects develop.
Each company will create their own version of a deep space habitat based on technology
they’re already developing.
Sierra Nevada, for example, will base their prototype on their Dream Chaser cargo module,
and will add life support systems, a propulsion module, and an inflatable room for some extra
space.
Meanwhile, Bigelow Aerospace will create an inflatable habitat based on an earlier prototype,
called BEAM.
Last June, the company actually had the chance to test BEAM by attaching it to the International
Space Station.
While the final habitat might not be exactly like any of the prototypes, these studies
will give NASA engineers valuable information about the kinds of systems and features deep-space
habitats need to have.
Each habitat is also set up a slightly different way, so creating multiple prototypes will
help researchers figure out the best design for the final version.
After the two years are over, NASA will get started on the final habitat and the systems
it’ll need, like propulsion modules and airlocks.
So there’s a lot of work left to be done before we send humans too far out into space.
But with Prospector-1 and these new deep-space habitats, we’re starting to get a little
closer.
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