WASHINGTON: A United States asteroid mining company has taken a major step forward in its mission to extract minerals in space.
Washington state based Planetary Resources launched its Arkyd-3 Reflight (AR3) craft from the International Space Station last week.
The vessel is on a 90-day mission to test and prove the company’s hardware and software.
Company president and chief asteroid miner Chris Lewiki said it was similar to the release of a beta-version of software for apps and computer programs.
“These days you can get pre-release alpha and beta versions of software, and, after they workout the bugs, they have a first release and find new feature requests and then create new versions,” he said.
“There’s a great advantage in that, because you can bring capability to market when it is ready, and you don’t have to build it all at once, which is how we have explored space up until today.”
The company plans to launch a second craft, Arkyd 6, later this year as part of this process.
Mr Lewiki said the goal was to build an industry in space, rather than to bring resources back to earth.
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