Is NASA mining asteroids? No, we’re not in the business of mining asteroids but we do love to study them.
This year, our #PsycheMission launches to a unique metal-rich asteroid to study what appears to be the exposed nickel-iron core of an early planet, one of the building blocks of our solar system. However, the science we gain from missions like this could one day benefit future humans in cosmic mining and resource endeavors.
And in September, our OSIRIS-REx mission will deliver an asteroid sample back to Earth. Analysis from the sample may help improve future asteroid missions: https://go.nasa.gov/43PoK2y
While NASA is working aggressively to meet our near-term goal of landing the first woman and next man on the Moon by 2024, our Artemis program also is focused on taking steps that will establish a safe and sustainable lunar exploration architecture.
NASA is taking a critical step forward by releasing a solicitation for commercial companies to provide proposals for the collection of space resources.
To meet NASA’s requirements, a company will collect a small amount of Moon “dirt” or rocks from any location on the lunar surface, provide imagery to NASA of the collection and the collected material, along with data that identifies the collection location, and conduct an “in-place” transfer of ownership of the lunar regolith or rocks to NASA. After ownership transfer, the collected material becomes the sole property of NASA for our use.
NASA’s goal is that the retrieval and transfer of ownership will be completed before 2024. The solicitation creates a full and open competition, not limited to U.S. companies, and the agency may make one or more awards. The agency will determine retrieval methods for the transferred lunar regolith at a later date.
Over the next decade, the Artemis program will lay the foundation for a sustained long-term presence on the lunar surface and use the Moon to validate deep space systems and operations before embarking on the much farther voyage to Mars. The ability to conduct in-situ resources utilization (ISRU) will be incredibly important on Mars, which is why we must develop techniques and gain experience with ISRU on the surface of the Moon.
This month space experts from all over the world convened in Luxembourg for the first Space Resources Week to discuss how best to explore our Solar System sustainably and limit costly transport of resources from Earth – for example can we produce water and oxygen on the Moon?
From extracting water to creating metals from lunar dust, preparing for the next century of exploration will take industry and commercial partnerships off Earth while using resources we find there.
The first days of the convention included a professional course with space engineers, scientists and lawyers and economists followed by a space mining summit on the legal and business aspects and technical challenges of resource use.
On the last two days of Space Resource Week ESA organised a workshop together with the Luxembourg Space Agency to plan the steps Europe will take in the next five years. With over 350 participants from a broad range of disciplines including academia, industry, mining and energy companies as well as politicians, entrepreneurs, investors and economists.
This is just the beginning, humankind is returning to the Moon and we are setting the international collaboration required to do this sustainably and in partnership, we are an inter-disciplinary community of space resource personnel and will convene again next year to review the progress made towards some key breakthroughs, making Europe a leader in this field.
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