Thursday, July 16, 2015

Planetary Resources Deploys Arkyd 3 Spacecraft

Redmond-based Planetary Resources, which is working on technology for asteroid mining, said today that its first spacecraft--the Arkyd 3 Reflight (A3R), has been deployed successfully from the International Space Station. Planetary Resources the spacecraft has begun a 90-day mission to help test technology it is developing to locate asteroids for mining. Planetary Resources' spacecraft had been delivered to the ISS by SpaceX, during its successful CRS-6 launch in April. Planetary Resources, which is led by Peter Diamandis, said it plans to launch its next vehicle, the Arkyd-6 (A6) later this year. Planetary's first attempt to launch its first vehicle--the Arkyd-3, was destroyed in a launch mishap in October of last year, after the Antares rocket it was riding on was destroyed on launch. Planetary second chance at a launch preceded a string of failed missions to the ISS--including the destruction of the next SpaceX mission, CRS-7, in Juneand the loss of a Russian resupply rocket, the Progress M-27M, in April.