from the oxymoron?-A-space-is-where-something-isn't...how-do-you-mine-*that*? dept.
China to Launch Space Mining Bot:
The possibility of space mining has long captured the imagination and even inspired business ventures. Now, a space startup in China is taking its first steps towards testing capabilities to identify and extract off-Earth resources.
Origin Space, a Beijing-based private space resources company, is set to launch its first 'space mining robot' in November. NEO-1 is a small (around 30 kilograms) satellite intended to enter a 500-kilometer-altitude sun-synchronous orbit. It will be launched by a Chinese Long March series rocket as a secondary payload.
This small spacecraft will not be doing actual mining; instead, it will be testing technologies. "The goal is to verify and demonstrate multiple functions such as spacecraft orbital maneuver, simulated small celestial body capture, intelligent spacecraft identification and control," says Yu Tianhong, an Origin Space co-founder.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 23 2020, @09:00PM (1 child)
Didn't our bot just rage quit? How you gonna keep a bot on the job, way out there? I mean, we could hunt our bot down, and drag his ass back to work, or destroy him, or whatever. You can't do that so easily out there in space.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday September 24 2020, @12:46AM
Nope, actually he got the Chinese job. Internet coverage in space is patchy, especially behind the Great Firewall.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Thursday September 24 2020, @12:47AM (2 children)
not believing a thing china is saying. they literally mistakenly broadcast a rocket launch and mission control conversation with pilots, several hours before the launch took place. the launch, their findings, and anything to learn from here has as much chance of being completely fake as not. it's best to literally ignore anything they say and just move on doing what we're doing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 24 2020, @07:35PM (1 child)
Got a link for that?
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Saturday September 26 2020, @08:51PM
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/3082804/China-fakes-reports-from-space.html [telegraph.co.uk]
there are some more examples of this bs if you google around.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by EventH0rizon on Thursday September 24 2020, @02:50AM
Interesting article, the latest developments in Chinese spacefaring are clearly showing the development of real expertise.
But I'd perhaps alter the text of the linked article from:
'Origin Space, a Beijing-based private space resources company...'
to:
'Origin Space, a Beijing-based "private" space resources company...'
If the majority of their directors aren't already party members, once the startup gets to any significant size, the makeup of the board will change.
And added to that, more explicit party control is under way in sweeping new changes that make the use of the word "private" complicated to say the least: https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/control-09162020113349.html [rfa.org]
(Score: 2) by Username on Thursday September 24 2020, @01:31PM
I hope they get there. They seem to be way behind on technology if they need to test control systems. I don't remember any space missions about capturing anything in orbit. I always assume there was, with those random russian satellites breaking apart from doing nothing. Be cool if they could capture debris or something and identify it's composition remotely.