The image is simple: a spaceship, a big bag, and an asteroid to lock inside. This is, in essence, the concept imagined by TransAstra for its “New Moon” mission. The Los Angeles-based start-up claims to have already found a client ready to finance a feasibility study. The idea is to look for a small asteroid close to Earth, around twenty meters in diameter, roughly the size of a house, and weighing around 100 tonnes.
Catching an asteroid with a net
Once there, a robotic vehicle would deploy an inflatable bag to envelop the asteroid, before towing it to a stable area, located a good distance from Earth. Behind this scenario worthy of a Michael Bay film, the company above all sees an industrial opportunity. “ We imagine making it a base for robotic research and the development of materials transformation processes. », explains CEO Joel Sercel.
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Rather than manufacturing equipment on Earth and sending it into space, why not directly use the resources available up there? TransAstra estimates that there are around 250 asteroids accessible in the next ten years with reusable craft. The company is even considering accumulating several dozen, then hundreds, in a sort of processing center located 1.5 million kilometers from Earth.
These space stones are not just curiosities: some contain water, others metals that can be used to make structures or solar panels. The heart of the project is based on a fairly literal technology: the “capture bag”. An inflatable bag, designed with materials like Kapton, capable of surrounding an asteroid.
This may make you smile, but the first tests are already there. Last September, a one-meter prototype was sent to the International Space Station. It was deployed in the void, then closed without incident. If everything goes according to plan, a first meeting with an asteroid could take place as early as 2028 or 2029. You still have to choose the spacecraft, which will be provided by an external partner.
The project contrasts with what exists today. In 2023, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission brought back to Earth… 121 grams of samples from the asteroid Bennu, at a cost of more than a billion dollars. TransAstra aims much bigger (and cheaper): repatriating an entire object, for a budget estimated at a few hundred million dollars.
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