Scottish aerospace company the Asteroid Mining Corporation (AMC) has announced plans to launch the UK’s first asteroid mining operation, seeking an investment of £2.3m to build and launch a mining satellite by 2020.

The vessel – known as Asteroid Prospecting Satellite One (ASP1) – will be capable of scanning 5,000 near-Earth asteroids to identify deposits of platinum-group metals that could be mined. The company claims that a single metallic asteroid with a diameter of 25m could contain around 29t of platinum, worth around £725m.

AMC founder Mitch Hunter-Scullion said: “Our goal is to develop ground-breaking technology that will eventually enable the extraction, processing and use of materials derived from the many millions of asteroids known to exist near Earth. The APS1 will be our first step to achieving this success.”

Hunter-Scullion has posted the ASP1 project on equity crowdfunding platform Crowdcube and has asked for an investment of £230,000 ‘to complete the theoretical work packages’ of the project ahead of any construction. The project has raised over £6,000 from 41 investors, and AMC will attempt to work with public funding initiatives in both Scotland and England; it has already undertaken an innovation voucher with the astronomy department of a UK university.

The project’s Crowdcube site states that ASP1 will collect data which can then be sold to private companies, alongside ‘governments, academics and other target markets’, suggesting an initial focus on gathering and trading information prior to any mining operations.

“The APS1 will be a spectroscope space telescope which will gather data on target asteroids and will act as a test for some of our technologies which we will scale up later for actual mining missions,” said Hunter-Scullion, who set up the company in March 2016, following completing his dissertation at Liverpool Hope University on the economic and political benefits of mining in space.

How well do you really know your competitors?

Access the most comprehensive Company Profiles on the market, powered by GlobalData. Save hours of research. Gain competitive edge.

Company Profile – free sample

Thank you!

Your download email will arrive shortly

Not ready to buy yet? Download a free sample

We are confident about the unique quality of our Company Profiles. However, we want you to make the most beneficial decision for your business, so we offer a free sample that you can download by submitting the below form

By GlobalData
Visit our Privacy Policy for more information about our services, how we may use, process and share your personal data, including information of your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications. Our services are intended for corporate subscribers and you warrant that the email address submitted is your corporate email address.

International law remains ambiguous on the subject of mining in space, as many of the agreements covering human behaviour beyond Earth relate to the demilitarisation of space and how territory on the Moon can be claimed. Only the US and Luxembourg have developed national space laws, so while there is significant potential for a private company to extract resources from bodies in space, the global political and economic implications are unclear.