A private Beijing company, Origin Space is set to send out the world’s first mining robot into space by November 2020, IEEE Specturm reported.
Termed as an ‘asteroid mining robot’, the robot is not going to do any actual mining. The mission is a preliminary assessment of the robot’s capabilities of identifying and extracting valuable resources.
‘The goal is to verify and demonstrate multiple functions such as spacecraft orbital manoeuvre, simulated small celestial body capture, intelligent spacecraft identification and control,’ Yu Tianhong, an Origin Space co-founder, told the US science magazine.
It being the first space-mining robot produced by a commercial company in the world, the mission will be a milestone for the space resources industry, the firm added.
The Chinese company also has another mission, Yuanwang-1 (‘Look up-1’), nicknamed ‘Little Hubble’, which is slated to be launched by late 2021 or early 2022.
However, experts have warned that the solar system needs to be left alone and protected from an impending rush of space mining efforts. A space ‘gold rush’ could leave humanity in a resource catastrophe in centuries, they warned.
Earlier, even NASA had announced that it would be buying ‘moon rocks’ from private companies in the future.