SpaceDev and Boeing have agreed a teaming arrangement to investigate opportunities of "mutual strategic interest" in commercial deep-space exploration and exploitation.
They will use as the basis for the study a variety of small low-cost missions formulated by SpaceDev, the world's first commercial space exploration company. The two firms say they will further refine and advance SpaceDev's concept of commercial missions to the moon, Mars and near-Earth asteroids, involving microspacecraft weighing about 250kg (550lb).
SpaceDev has been updating the design of the Near Earth Asteroid Prospector mission since 1997 and has started to offer commercial fixed-price Mars probe-carrier and Moon-orbiter missions with real-time video streaming.
Chairman and founder of SpaceDev, Jim Benson, believes there will be a "no holds-barred" explosive opening of space by the private sector and the convergence of space with the Internet, providing the largest Internet-audience delivery system.
Source: Flight International
