Finding a Practical Asteroid Strategy

Abstract

Abstract Understanding the promise of asteroid resources and the threat of asteroid impacts is clouded by a dearth of key data, especially on the smaller asteroids that are the most numerous targets for retrieval and that present the most frequent danger of destroying cities or regions on Earth. Deep Space Industries is preparing a series of low-cost robotic spacecraft based on cubesat technologies to gather the data required to characterize smaller asteroids (less than 500 meters in diameter). This data should be exploited for asteroid retrieval carried out in a commercial context so that multiple technologies can be proven in operation and multiple missions and approaches can mitigate the uncertainties involved in returning asteroids to cislunar space.