Planetary Resources on Wednesday night successfully deployed its test-spacecraft Arkyd 3 Reflight (A3R) from the International Space Station (ISS). The company announced in a news release that its spacecraft left an airlock and began a 90-day mission.

In its three-month long mission A3R will be used to test and validate some basic technologies that the company hopes to incorporate in future spacecraft to identify near-Earth asteroids for potentially valuable resources.

Planetary Resources president and chief engineer Chris Lewicki said, “Our philosophy is to test often, and if possible, to test in space. The A3R is the most sophisticated, yet cost-effective, test demonstration spacecraft ever built”.

It has been said that the small craft was sent to the ISS aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 resupply mission in April. On Wednesday, July 15, the craft was sent out the Kibo airlock so that it could begin checking out its avionics, control systems and software, among other systems.

A3R operators said that the craft will be followed by the Arkyd-6 (A6), another demonstrator set to launch later this year.

It was told that the A6 will check next-generation attitude control, power and communication systems, including the sensors that will be used to detect resources with good potential for mining.

The technologies being tested in the A3R and A6 will be incorporated into the planned Arkyd 100, which includes a space telescope that will be used to hunt for promising objects to perform mining.

Planetary Resources crowd funded over US$1.5 million for the telescope back in 2013, with hope that it would be able to launch in 2015, which is now shifted to a year further.
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