An asteroid’s size, shape, and rotational speed are clues to its internal properties and potential resources for mining operations. However, of the more than 20,000 near-Earth asteroids currently known, only a tiny fraction have been sufficiently characterized to estimate those three properties accurately. That is essentially a resource constraint – there aren’t enough dedicated telescopes …



The post Swarming Satellites Could Autonomous Characterize an Asteroid appeared first on Universe Today.



Source: Swarming Satellites Could Autonomous Characterize an Asteroid