Asteroids Could Fuel the Clean-Energy Transition

In April 2023, a satellite the size of a microwave launched into space. Its goal: to get ready to mine asteroids. Although the mission, backed by a company called AstroForge, ran into problems, it’s part of a new wave of activity by would-be asteroid miners hoping to cash in on cosmic resources.

Potential applications of space-mined material abound: Asteroids contain metals such as platinum and cobalt, which are used in electronics and electric-vehicle batteries, respectively. Although plenty of these materials exist on Earth, they can be more concentrated on asteroids than on mountainsides, making them easier to scrape out. And scraping in space, advocates say, could cut down on the damaging impacts of mining on this planet. Space-resource advocates also want to explore the potential of other substances. What if, say, space ice could be used for spacecraft and rocket propellant? Or space dirt could be used for astronaut-housing structures and radiation shielding?

Previous companies have rocketed toward similar goals before, but they went bust about half a decade ago. In the years since that first cohort left the stage, though, “the field has exploded in interest,” says Angel Abbud-Madrid, the director of the Center for Space Resources at the Colorado School of Mines.

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