Planetary Resources, the would-be asteroid mining company founded by X-Prize creator Peter Diamandis and backed by the likes of Google’s Sergey Brin and James Cameron, on Sunday evening posted a video on YouTube showing off a prototype of its asteroid-hunting telescope, the Arkyd-100, due to launch later this year or early 2014. As the company’s president and “chief asteroid miner” Chris Lewicki notes in the video, the telescope is surprisingly small — about 24 pounds (11 kg), or the size of a picnic cooler. Lewicki also favorably compares Planetary Resources’ in-house research and development process to that of SpaceX.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=165591