PDAC 2016: Planetary Resources shows off its asteroid mining technology

TORONTO – Depressed commodity prices aren’t stopping one mining company at PDAC from settings its sights high – beyond orbit, actually.

Planetary Resources, Inc. sticks out one of the companies only at that year’s mining convention because its focus is extracting resources from asteroids. As the idea may appear outlandish, the firm counts former NASA engineers among its ranks and it is backed by some high profile investors, including Google co-founder Larry Page.

The company is currently testing its technology through satellite launches, so it hopes will ultimately result in harvesting ores from near-earth asteroids. 

“The following resource frontier is space,”  said Chris Lewicki, president and chief executive of Planetary Resources. “We’re prospecting the greatest resource within the mining industry.”

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Lewicki certainly has the resum to support his ambitious goals. He was NASA’s flight director for the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity and was the surface mission director for the agency’s Phoenix lander.

Planetary Resources is not aiming to put drilling rigs into space immediately, however. Instead, its initial focus is on developing foundational technology like a evidence of concept.

Last year, the company launched the Arkyd 3 Reflight spacecraft, which served like a test of the control systems and software that’ll be needed to mine asteroids. The Reflight designation was utilized since the original Arkyd 3 was destroyed after an Antares rocket that carried it blew up seconds after launch.

Lewicki’s ultimate goal is for the technology his company is now developing for use in building the infrastructure essential for the colonization of space. He said that although it will be possible to bring the ores mined back to earth, ultimately, he hopes they’ll be used in establishing permanent human habitats beyond earth.

“Eventually humans will be expanding the economy in to the solar system,” he explained.