2nd U.S. Firm Takes Aim at Mining Asteroids

By Irene Klotz

Wed Jan 23, 2013 10:24am EST
 

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Jan 22 - A team of entrepreneurs and engineers unveiled plans on Tuesday for a space mining company that would tap nearby asteroids for raw materials to fuel satellites and manufacture components in orbit.

Deep Space Industries, based in Santa Monica, California, said its inaugural mission is targeted for 2015, when it would send a small hitchhiker spacecraft called "Firefly" on a six-month expedition to survey an as-yet-unidentified asteroid.

The 55-pound (25-kg) satellite, about the size of a laptop computer, would be launched as a secondary payload aboard a commercial rocket carrying a communications satellite or other robotic probe.

More - Link >>> http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/23/us-space-mining-idUSBRE90L14E20130123

Source: Reuters Wire Service.

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