Planetary Resources Ceres Satellites to Focus on Earth Observations
Video Caption: Conceived from our vision for the exploration and utilization of resources from asteroids, Ceres, our advanced Earth observation system, delivers affordable, on-demand Earth intelligence of any point on the planet.
Read more about Ceres and Planetary Resources’ Earth Observation capabilities on our website: https://www.planetaryresources.com/ear…
Editor’s Note: Hey, you guys deployed an Arkyd satellite into space in mid-July on a 90-day mission to test technology. How did that go? It’s been six months and I can’t find any updates on it at your website.
6 responses to “Planetary Resources Ceres Satellites to Focus on Earth Observations”
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Mebe its on a secrut missin’? 😉
I asked on their facebook page a couple times about the probe.. they have not posted my question or responded to it.
maybe they saw planet labs gig and wanted a slice of that pie instead so they hope everyone is gonna forget about asteroid mining :/
Given the overlap between the technology needed to image and analyze asteroids and to image and analyze objects on Earth. Given the need for both satellites looking for asteroids and satellites observing Earth to be licensed by NOAA. Given their connection to Google via Larry Page (think of a near real time Google Earth). And given the desirability of a near term revenue stream to offset the long wait for any revenues for asteroid mining, this is a very logical and practical idea.
It will provide a near term revenue stream while they are developing the technology to scan, analyze and identify the best asteroids. And it also shows this as a serious venture, not just for PR or a hobby business. One indication of a good team of managers is their willingness to develop near term revenue streams while they are focused on long term goals.
VG would be in a much stronger position today if they had quickly built an upgraded duplicate of SpaceShipOne and used it for science, education and research suborbital flights while waiting for their “grand spaceliner”, SpaceShipTwo, to be build for the space tourist trade. Not as flashy markets as space tourism perhaps but the operational experience would have been invaluable. It is good to see that Planetary Resources is not making the same mistake.
This shows me this is a serious space firm that doesn’t have tunnel visions. I expect their next move will be to identify, recover and experiment with the remains of NEOs that are scattered over the lunar surface before send those systems far from Earth to apply to NEOs.
Well, I will definitely buy in on the ‘slice of the pie’ side of it when it comes to wanting in to Earth observation market. After all, their investors will only go so far and they NEED some form of revenue in order to proceed with their asteroid mining plans.
And imho, why not Earth observation, as Thomas said they technology overlap is significant. Hell, I bet that if you do it properly you could even make those birds dual purpose. Point them at Earth when you are not scouting NEO’s and turn them around when you are!
Edit:
Ah, upon further reading they not a new type of satellite, they are the same Arkyd-100’s that they plan to use for NEO observation. Nice.
Hmm. Interesting.
This is the difference between spacex and other companies. They all work hard to toot the horn on successes, but hide all failures. My guess is that they have a general failure.