After becoming the first European country to announce its intention to establish a legal framework plan for space resources, Luxembourg has made another advancement in the sector with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Luxembourg Government, the public-law banking institution Société Nationale de Crédit et d'Investissement (SNCI) and the Deep Space Industries (DSI) asteroid mining company.
The partnership within the spaceresources.lu initative planning the exploration, use and commercialisation of rexources from Near Earth Objects (NEOs) will involve DSI's US and Europe branches build up economic and technological substance by developing advanced products, systems and services focused on the utilisation of asteroid resources and other technologies to then be marketed across the space industry.
In parallel, the Luxembourg State will collaborate with DSI to help fund relevant R&D projects in the field under the Luxembourg space programme LuxIMPULSE, the national R&D support progamme and through the financing instruments of the SNCI.
"Our promising cooperation with DSI within the spacerespurces.lu initiative clearly demonstrates the strong commitment of the Luxembourg Government to support the exploration and future use of space resources," commented Étienne Schneider, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Economy. "Separate negotiations to formalise our relationship with other companies active in this field are underway. Our aim is to attract space research activities and technological capabilities to Luxembourg, which is home to an increasingly important space sector as part of our continous efforts to diversify the national economy."
The MoU has also provided a basis for the construction and operation of Prospector-X, a risk-reduction technology demonstration mission for small spacecraft asteroid exploration, to be tested in both the US and here in the Grand Duchy. Nano spacecraft will be employed to test several major enabling technologies for DSI's first asteroid prospecting mission, Prospector-1. The Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SnT) of the University of Luxembourg will be one of DSI's partners in this project.
Chair of Deep Space, Rick Tumlinson, spoke of the need for collaboration as a means of opening up space resources for all, stating: "The best way for this to happen is for enlightened governments and private entities to partner in new ways, using the power of enterprise and innovation, with each doing what they do best. We are pleased to be part of the Luxembourg community and working with its world-class institutions to accomplish the goals of harvesting space resources and advancing the state of space technology. Luxembourg, as it has done before in finance and other space technologies, has leapt to the forefront of this newest frontier, and we are proud to link arms with them and head out into the future."
Photo by spaceresources.lu
