Issue link: http://resourceworld.uberflip.com/i/638235
60 www.resourceworld.com f e b r u a r y / m a r c h 2 0 1 6 Redmond, Washington-based planetary resources inc., the asteroid mining com- pany, is delighted that President Obama has signed the US Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act (H.R. 2262) into law. This law recognizes the right of US citizens to own asteroid resources they obtain and encourages the commercial exploration and utilization of resources from asteroids. "This is the single greatest recognition of property rights in history," said Eric Anderson, Co-Founder and Co-Chairman, Planetary Resources, "This legislation establishes the same supportive framework that created the great economies of history, and will encourage the sustained develop- ment of space." Peter H. Diamandis, M.D., Co-Founder and Co-Chairman, Planetary Resources, said, "A hundred years from now, human- ity will look at this period in time as the point in which we were able to establish a permanent foothold in space." Senator Murray (D-WA) said, "The natural resources of our solar system have great potential to facilitate and support our human endeavours, both in outer space and on Earth. Commercial space companies in the US are making significant investments to develop technical capabilities that will allow us to explore and use outer space resources. This bill enables this new industry and pro- vides guidance for future entrepreneurs." Chris Lewicki, President and Chief Engineer, said, "This off-planet economy will forever change our lives for the better here on Earth. We celebrate this law as it creates a pro-growth environment for our emerging industry by encouraging private sector investment and ensuring an increas- ingly stable and predictable regulatory environment." Planetary Resources plans to con- duct low-cost robotic space exploration beginning with the Arkyd series of space missions that will identify the most com- mercially viable near-Earth asteroids. These initial missions will assist the company in enabling the retrieval of raw materi- als from these select asteroids, including water, precious metals and more. These resources won't be shipped to Earth, but will be used by those work- ing and exploring space. It is much less expensive to mine asteroids and use their resources for space projects than to mine them on Earth and send them to outer space. Last July, the company reported that its Arkyd 3 Reflight (A3R) spacecraft was deployed successfully from the International Space Station's (ISS) Kibo airlock. The demonstration vehicle vali- dated several core technologies including the avionics, control systems and software, which the company will incorporate into future spacecraft that will prospect for resource-rich near-Earth asteroids. These technologies will be the main components of the Arkyd series of deep- space asteroid-prospecting spacecraft. The next demonstrator, the Arkyd-6 (A6), scheduled to launch shortly, will test the next generation of attitude control, power, communication and avionics systems and also add sensors for detection and charac- terization of resources. n MININGWORLD Planetary resources Pleased wIth new asteroId stakIng law www.resourceworld.com