For generations, Western space missions have been conducted primarily outdoors. We knew where they were going, why they were going there, and what they were going to do. But the world is on the brink of a new era in which private interests override such openness, with potentially big bucks at stake.
Sometime next year, a spacecraft from American asteroid mining company Astroforge could launch on a mission to a rocky object near Earth’s orbit. If successful, it would be the first fully commercial deep space mission beyond the moon. However, AstroForge is keeping its target asteroid a secret.
The secret space rock mission is the latest in a new trend that astronomers and other experts do not welcome. It is a secret commercial space mission. Such missions not only highlight gaps in the regulation of spaceflight, but also concerns about whether space exploration will continue to benefit all humanity.
Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Massachusetts, said: “I think it’s a situation where objects are swirling around inside our solar system without anyone knowing where they are. I strongly disagree,” he said. “I think we’ve set a bad precedent.”
But with AstroForge, the math is easy. Once the destination is revealed, competitors could claim the asteroid’s valuable metals for themselves.
“Announcing which asteroid you’re targeting runs the risk of other entities capturing that asteroid,” AstroForge CEO Matt Gearich said.
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Asteroid mining has entered a lull in recent years after two startups proposing to explore the solar system went out of business in the late 2010s. But now several companies in the United States, Europe, and China are trying something new.even in a parliamentary committee A public hearing on the matter was held in December..
This renaissance was sparked by a new wave of commercial space exploration, driven primarily by SpaceX, a company founded by Elon Musk that flies reusable rocket boosters and lowers the cost of reaching space.
With increased activity comes increased secrecy.
In 2019, the Israeli-made commercial lander Beresheet attempted to land on the moon, but crash-landed. It was kept secret on board the ship until after the failed landing. thousands of tardigrades, Microscopic Animals provided by the nonprofit Arch Mission Foundation. The crash raised concerns that the moon could be contaminated with hardy organisms and prompted an investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration.
Most recently, suborbital spaceflight company Virgin Galactic withheld the identities of those aboard its spaceplanes until the mission was complete, a practice never seen before in human spaceflight. And some satellites will fly into space along with many other orbiters. ride share missionis also kept secret.
“We often have launches where we don’t know what the satellite is when it’s deployed until some time later,” Dr. McDowell said. Public database of spacecraft in orbit.
Michelle Hanlon, a law professor specializing in space at the University of Mississippi, said that when it comes to extraterrestrial missions, there are legal restrictions on keeping the destination of deep space missions secret, as Astroforge intends. No, he said.
“We don’t have a real process for deep space missions like this,” she said, because the U.S. “doesn’t have a clearance process.”
But complications can arise if, for example, multiple asteroid miners arrive at the same asteroid.
“There needs to be some transparency here,” Dr. McDowell says. He pointed out that while there is a United Nations requirement for space agencies and companies to disclose their orbits and trajectories in space, “objects orbiting the sun are usually ignored.”
He added that the lack of penalties “should spark discussion among regulators.”
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AstroForge’s mission, Odin, will be the company’s second spacecraft to send into space. Brokkr-1, first released in April, was a microwave-sized machine weighing about 25 pounds. The goal of that mission was to practice metal refining in a space environment.However, problems arose with the spacecraft, and the company stated on December 11th. AstroForge is in a “race against time” to get Brokkr-1 functional before it is lost.
Odin, on the other hand, weighs much more at 220 pounds. AstroForge will piggyback on Intuitive Machines’ 2024 robotic mission to the moon, sponsored by NASA and launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The release date has not yet been decided.
During the journey to the moon, Odin is released and plans to venture into deep space beyond the moon’s orbit. Within a year, the spacecraft will pass by the mysterious asteroid, taking photos and searching for evidence of metal along the way, AstroForge said.
AstroForge is targeting what appears to be an M-type asteroid. These are thought to be fragments of a broken planetary core and may be rich in valuable platinum group metals. wide range of applications This also includes healthcare and jewelry.
No spacecraft has ever visited such an asteroid before, but NASA’s Psyche mission, which launched in October, plans to target a potential M-type asteroid (also known as Psyche) between Mars and Jupiter. be. However, it won’t arrive until August 2029, giving AstroForge the opportunity to be the first to visit such an object.
So far, AstroForge has raised $13 million from investors. A full mining mission will require even more significant investment. However, if the company is successful, it will bring wealth. On Earth, mining the metals that may be present in M-type asteroids can be difficult and expensive. For example, iridium sells for thousands of dollars per ounce.
The business case for extracting metals from asteroids hasn’t always been clear. Returning material to Earth is difficult and expensive. NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission returned only an estimated half a pound of material from an asteroid called Bennu in September, but it cost Estimated $1.16 billion.
AstroForge is confident in its financial outlook. “We expect to be able to return materials at a high profit margin,” Gearich said. “We built our business model by leveraging ridesharing and partnerships to make each mission as economically viable as possible.”
Akbar Wigin, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute, said he understands the motivation for keeping the asteroid secret. He previously worked at mining startup Planetary Resources. never reached an asteroidand it too was shy about its targets.
“This is a commercial enterprise,” he said. “You don’t tell people, ‘I know where the money is.'”
But some scientists think asteroid miners should be more upfront about what they’re looking for. M-type asteroids give humans a window into the chaotic early solar system 4.5 billion years ago, when objects frequently collided and planets formed. That means anything AstroForge discovers could be scientifically valuable, said planetary scientist Stephanie Jarmack, also of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
“I’m a big supporter of open science,” said Dr. Jarmak, who is also a project scientist. NASA Science Explorer. “We’ve never visited an M-type asteroid before, so there’s a lot we can learn.”
That could include “insights into the heating processes that were occurring early in the solar system’s history,” says the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, which led NASA’s DART mission to hit an asteroid in September 2022. said astronomer Andy Rivkin.
“We will never reach the Earth’s core,” he said. “So visiting these types of objects will give us information that we can extrapolate to learn more about Earth and apply it to different planets.”
Benjamin Weiss, a planetary scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-principal investigator of the Psyche project, said the true nature of M-type asteroids is still unknown. He said that “it was always the main assumption” that M-type asteroids were metallic, but he didn’t know for sure.
2010, European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft Passed the asteroid Lutetia. Scientists discovered that it was not as metallic as expected. That will make whatever AstroForge discovers even more valuable, Dr. Weiss said.
Gearich said AstroForge will be transparent except for the asteroid itself. “We are not secretive about our mission,” he said. “I plan to share the image.”
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AstroForge hasn’t revealed which asteroids it’s targeting, but it may shed some light on where the company is heading.
There are approximately 30,000 asteroids known to be near Earth, giving AstroForge many potential targets. But the company said its target size is less than 330 feet and could be achieved within a year of launch. That means it must pass through Earth’s orbit, or at least close to it. This asteroid is suspected to be type M, which is brighter than other asteroids because it may contain metals.
These clues have narrowed the list of potential targets to “about 300 asteroids,” said Mitch Hunter-Scullion, chief executive of Asteroid Mining Corporation, a potential competitor of AstroForge in the UK. It is said that it will be done.
Dr. Jermak further narrowed down potential targets by considering their brightness and size. “I have a list of 14 objects,” she said.
Of these, particularly promising is 2010’s CD55, which is about 80 meters in diameter, is reasonably bright, suggests a metallic component, and is reachable from Earth within the time frame of AstroForge’s launch date.
Mr. Gearich would not verify or deny the suggestion.
“We don’t want to publicly identify the target asteroid,” he said.
He added that there are multiple targets AstroForge is considering. “We are actively pursuing several asteroids that could potentially carry out the Odin mission even if the launch date shifts,” he said.
Dr. McDowell noted that even if an asteroid cannot be identified before launch, amateur astronomers on Earth may be able to track the spacecraft after it reaches space and figure out where it goes. .
“There are some practical issues,” he says. “But I certainly think there’s interest in tracking it.”
