SAN FRANCISCO — TransAstra is performing a study, funded by investors and customers, to explore the technical feasibility of moving a 100-metric-ton asteroid to a stable near-Earth orbit.
"We want to bring an asteroid to the Earth-moon system and turn it into a robotic research outpost for materials processing and manufacturing in space," Joel Sercel, TransAstra founder and CEO, told SpaceNews.
Working with the University of Central Florida, Purdue University, the California Institute of Technology and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Los Angeles-based TransAstra will identify suitable asteroids, analyze their trajectories and select spacecraft to perform the mission, called New Moon.
