The Space Resources meeting for 2024 happened:
Interesting agenda items:
Al Blooshi, Heyam – UAE Space Agency, The UAE’s Emirates Mission to Explore the Asteroid Belt (EMA)
Crull, Daynan – Karman+, High Frontier: The First Asteroid Excavation Mission
Lantukh, Demyan – AstroForge, Rapid Mission Design to Enable Asteroid Mining
Broslav, Timofey – Colorado School of Mines, Optical Mining – A Spallation Mining Model
The United Arab Emirates may be new to space (…hence, NewSpace: not just Weyland-Yutani wannabees, or billionaires blowing up stuff), but the UAE space effort is no joke. What the UAE lacks domestically, they have no shame in purchasing commercially, or via partnerships/exchanges. Hence, the items that need to get checked, get checked.
Karman+ has made some waves recently, claiming they’re serious because they’ve obtained serious backing. Though they’re a startup, their claims (if true) would indicate they’re not messing around.
AstroForge seems to have taken the opposite tack. Unlike Karman+, AF stayed in stealth mode, and built an asteroid probe. Yes, that’s right, a private company (and startup at that) just emerged from stealth and announced they already have a probe. This probe is shy of the UAE probe’s capabilities but still a functioning spacecraft, and now awaits a launch opportunity. The asteroid target had not been announced (last I checked), but why would it. Secondary-launch windows open and close, based on the whims of the primary payload. Therefore, AF would have to have a whole list of potential asteroids, depending on the launch date they can get.
And of course, the host venue is a relevant and notable party in this game. The Colorado School of Mines is no 1800s, coal-and-lead outfit. “Mines” includes space missions, which is what this is all about.
Also note:
POSTER PRESENTATIONS
#1 Semi-Autonomous Framework for Completing Contact Tasks in the Presence of Latency – Emmanuel Akita, The University of Texas at Austin
#7 Determination of Maximum Operating Temperature of Enstatite – Evan Karavolos, De Astris Generation LLC
#15 Off Earth Resources (OER) – Shattering Paradigms and Creating Space Mining 2.0 – Mark Sonter, Off Earth Mining Pty Ltd, Australia
#16 Connected Robotic Mest for Asteroid Mining without Influencing Asteroid Path of Travel – Abhijeet Narwal
#19 The Brazil Nut Effect (BNE) for Particle Size Classification in ISRU – Joshua Rasera, Imperial College London, United Kingdom
#23 A Proposed Framework for Astroagronomy as a Space Resources Discipline – Jerry V. Drew II, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College
More agencies, more companies, more startups, more asteroids and discoveries- more EVERYTHING