The concept of excavating resources in space is highly controversial. Many scientists have called for the solar system to be protected from such practices — but that hasn’t stopped global superpowers, particularly the US and China, from investigating ways to do so.
It may become a milestone moment in the country’s efforts to make use of space resources — but the robot, dubbed NEO-1, won’t be mining any asteroids itself. Its job in Earth’s orbit will be to “verify and demonstrate multiple functions such as spacecraft orbital maneuver, simulated small celestial body capture, intelligent spacecraft identification and control,” as Yu Tianhong, an Origin Space co-founder, told IEEE Spectrum.
