Deep Space Industries Acquired by Bradford

Deep Space Industries was based in 2012 with plans to develop asteroid mining capabilities, however has extra just lately centered on smallsat applied sciences, akin to propulsion techniques.

WASHINGTON — Deep Space Industries (DSI), an organization based to pursue asteroid mining however which extra just lately has centered on smallsats, has been acquired by one other space know-how firm.

Bradford Space, a U.S.-owned firm with services within the Netherlands and Sweden, introduced Jan. 1 that it has acquired San Jose, California-based DSI. Ian Fichtenbaum, a director of Bradford Space, confirmed in a Jan. 1 e mail that the deal had closed, however that phrases of the acquisition couldn’t be disclosed.

A bunch of entrepreneurs and space advocates based DSI in 2012 with a objective of growing applied sciences for prospecting and ultimately extracting space assets, akin to water ice, from asteroids. It proposed finishing up these missions utilizing small spacecraft the corporate deliberate to develop. [Deep Space Industries’ Asteroid-Mining Vision in Pictures]

Extra just lately, DSI pivoted in the direction of smallsats usually, together with the manufacturing of a propulsion system known as Comet that used water as propellant. The corporate promoted Comet on its means to offer efficiency approaching that of conventional monopropellant techniques like hydrazine, however with a non-toxic propellant that was cheaper and safer to deal with.

Bradford Space has its personal inexperienced propulsion techniques for spacecraft by means of its 2017 acquisition of ECAPS, a Swedish firm that developed high-performance non-toxic satellite tv for pc propulsion techniques. Fifteen spacecraft are utilizing these ECAPS thrusters, together with three launched Dec. three on a SpaceX Falcon 9. That launch additionally carried 4 satellites utilizing Comet thrusters from DSI.

Fichtenbaum stated that Bradford sees Comet as a complementary product to its present ECAPS thrusters. The acquisition will give Bradford a presence in america to assist promote ECAPS techniques and different applied sciences, in addition to “a great engineering and production team” and buyer base. “The Bradford infrastructure will also help sales of Comet in Europe and with our pre-existing ECAPS customers,” he added.

DSI, which will probably be rebranded as Bradford Space Inc., or BSI, will proceed to work on a satellite tv for pc bus known as Xplorer that’s meant to be used on missions past Earth orbit. “The DSI team provided very innovative solutions to the problem of exploring the solar system at a reasonable cost, and we are eager to see if that can be developed with the help of Bradford technologies,” Fichtenbaum stated within the assertion saying the acquisition. These applied sciences embrace elements on ESA’s BepiColombo mission to Mercury launched in October and the JUICE mission to Jupiter below growth.

He did not rule out persevering with to pursue asteroid mining, at the least as a long-term aspiration for the corporate. “For commercial asteroid mining, we are not people who sneer at its prospects,” he stated in an e mail. “We believe it has a real future and want to see if DSI’s Comet and Xplorer as well as Bradford’s existing activities can play a part of that future.” He added, although, that “for now we are taking things step by step.”

The acquisition of DSI comes a bit of greater than two months after one other startup with asteroid mining ambitions, Planetary Sources, was acquired by ConsenSys, a blockchain know-how firm. The founding father of ConsenSys, Joseph Lubin, stated in an announcement on the time that Planetary Sources match into its imaginative and prescient of “democratizing and decentralizing space endeavors” however has offered few particulars on how that may be carried out.

This story was offered by SpaceNews, devoted to protecting all facets of the space business.