Tag: Planetary Resources
-
NASA and Planetary Resources release asteroid-hunting desktop app, cite 15% boost in positive IDs
Ready to hunt for some asteroids? NASA and Planetary Resources have announced a new desktop app that incorporates algorithms from a contest that challenged researchers to detect asteroids with greater accuracy. The Asteroid Data Hunter app runs on Windows and Mac, with a Linux version coming soon. Planetary Resources, the asteroid mining company based in Redmond, Wash.,…
-
FAA opens way for companies to stake claims to lunar rights
Photo via YouTube/Moon trailer Do we have the right to reserve rights to the moon? Apparently so. At least that’s the message the U.S. government appears to be sending. In an exclusive report by Reuters, “U.S. companies can stake claims to lunar territory through an existing licensing process for space launches.” The Federal Aviation Administration, in a “previously…
-
Planetary Resources vows to press ahead after rocket explosion
An artist’s rendering of the Arkyd 100 space telescope in orbit. The launch of the Arkyd 3 engineering demonstrator this week was to be the first big step in Planetary Resources’ plan to find and mine asteroids. Planetary Resources, the Redmond-based asteroid mining company whose first experimental satellite is presumed destroyed in the explosion of the…
-
Asteroid mining company Planetary Resources launching first spacecraft
An artist’s rendering of the Arkyd 100 space telescope in orbit. The launch of the Arkyd 3 engineering demonstrator (below) is the first big step in Planetary Resources’ plan to find and mine asteroids. Update: Rocket carrying Planetary Resources satellite explodes shortly after liftoff The team at Planetary Resources has years of experience sending spacecraft into orbit…
-
Planetary Resources teams with Zooniverse to turn everyone into an asteroid hunter
Planetary Resources announced today that it has teamed up with Zooniverse to create Asteroid Zoo, a web app that allows people to search for asteroids by flipping through pictures collected by the Catalina Sky Survey. The app gives users a variety of tools to flip through a quartet of sky images collected from a telescope,…
-
Planetary Resources plans to boost space exploration with interstellar ‘gas stations’
Chris Lewicki People heading off on an interstellar journey may soon have one of the prerequesites for a road trip: gas stations. Planetary Resources Chairman Chris Lewicki told the Future in Revew conference this week that his company wants to take asteroids and turn them into interstellar pit stops, where spaceships could stop and refuel.…
-
NASA and Planetary Resources offer cash bounty for asteroid detection software
Want to figure out how to save the Earth and make some cash at the same time? Thanks to a new partnership, that’s a possibility. NASA is teaming up with Bellevue-based Planetary Resources to offer $35,000 in prizes in a series of contests over the next six months to people who create software that can…
-
Planetary Power rolls out ‘HyGen’ — the Toyota Prius of diesel generators
Planetary Power expects to deliver 50 HyGen hybrid diesel-battery generators this year. Image Credit: Planetary Power For the six-person crew that lived through a grueling four-month Mars simulation on Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano last year, this beige trailer was a critical source of power — not to mention the key to some peace and quiet.…
-
Planetary Resources and NASA partner to crowdsource asteroid detection
Thanks to a Seattle-area company, programmers are soon going to have a shot at using NASA data to find asteroids. Asteroid mining company Planetary Resources announced today that it has signed an agreement with NASA to sponsor challenges to use algorithms to better detect asteroids and other objects that have orbits that pass close to…
-
Asteroid miners raise $1.5M for public space telescope, name Richard Branson as investor
Planetary Resources’ Kickstarter campaign started one month ago with some help from Brent Spiner, ended this past weekend with $100,000 from Sir Richard Branson and raised a nice chunk of change from more than 17,000 backers during the process itself. The Bellevue asteroid-mining company just finished one of the top-25 most successful campaigns in Kickstarter history, raising $1,505,366…