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Deep Space Industries to fly probe to asteroid

The competition heats up: A private company, Deep Space Industries (DSI), has announced plans to send the first privately-built probe to an asteroid before the end of the decade.

Recently, Deep Space Industries and its partner, the government of Luxembourg, announced plans to build and fly Prospector-X™, an experimental mission to low-Earth orbit that will test key technologies needed for low-cost exploration spacecraft. This precursor mission is scheduled to launch in 2017. Then, before the end of this decade, Prospector-1 will travel beyond Earth’s orbit to begin the first space mining exploration mission.

Note that this funding is another example of the Luxembourg government’s effort to invest in commercial space, for profit.

If all goes as planned, the rest of this decade should be very exciting. We will have a private mission to the Moon, a private mission to an asteroid, and a private mission to Mars. All will cost pennies compared to what the government spends. All will be built and launched quickly, compared to how long the government takes. And all will be for profit, which is certainly not what the government is interested in.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

One comment

  • Tom Billings

    I note that DSI’s Prospector Mission is mentioned on their website, and given a nice description. At the bottom of that page you link to there is a link to a DSI description of 2016 HO3. I had thought Dr. Lewis would be interested in it. If a statement in a comment on an article about 2016 HO3 bears out, that a round trip to it would only be 5 months long, then this may be their best candidate target for their first mission.

    Since DSI emphasizes water so much, the presumed long residence of 2016 HO3 in near-Earth orbit may rule it out, but its position as a close quasi-moon of Earth is deeply tempting. If it can be used by DSI, or others, then we may see a blossoming of the sort Jeff Bezos spoke of. Its effects on ULA’s vision would be spectacular.

    I do wonder how it might affect SpaceX plans for Mars as well. Shuttling MCTs between an EML-1 facility and Mars orbit, using materials from 2016 HO3, and only launching passengers from Earth to EML-1, would be far cheaper, and move large numbers of people faster, than everything being launched from Earth. We all wait for data on composition, however. Prospector-1 will carry a neutron spectrometer to tell us about that.

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