Space Mining

FEOM FORBES.COM - Jamie Carter

16 Psyche, the large metallic asteroid ideal for space mining. GETTY

We know the age of private space travel is here, but what about the wider commercial space industry? “Space mining” has been talked-up in recent years, but the hype-cycle has peaked with the realization that the technology to fetch rare-Earth metals from distant asteroids is some way off.


That’s not stopped NASA’s plans to launch, in 2022, its “Psyche” mission to a large metallic asteroid called 16 Psyche that’s thought to be largely metallic—and so ideal for space mining.

However, the NASA plans to merely orbit and document 16 Psyche, and in any case won’t reach the asteroid—situated in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter—until 2026.

Now researchers have uncovered two metal-rich near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) that could one day be mined for iron, nickel and cobalt could for use on Earth or in space.

They’re reckoned to be 85% metal and one is thought to contain enough iron, nickel and cobalt to exceed Earth’s reserves.

Published in the Planetary Science Journal, the paper documents the examination of two asteroids, 1986 DA and 2016 ED85, whose light appears to be similar to asteroid 16 Psyche.