Western research team takes part in asteroid-mining study 

This mosaic image of asteroid Bennu is composed of 12 PolyCam images collected on Dec. 2, 2018, by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, (NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona/Wikimedia Commons) - This summer, a group of student researchers and professors from Western University is taking part in a new project that will look at the future of asteroid mining in space. Known as the Khepri Asteroid Mining Mission , the international research effort is exploring options for potentially mining resources from the Bennu asteroid, a half-kilometer long asteroid located 200 million miles away from Earth. The project will investigate a wide array of aspects, including engineering, business, legal issues and public policies of space resource utilization. Along with Western, the collaborative project includes professors, students and industry professionals from the University of Toronto, University of Waterloo, University of Arizona, the University of Alberta, and MDA, a space technology company based in Brampton, Ont. The team from Western includes: civil and environmental engineering professor Timothy Newson; Earth sciences professor Gordon Osinski; as well as three students from the Faculty of Engineering, two from the Faculty of Law and one from the Faculty of Earth Sciences. Western Law professors Valerie Oosterveld and Elizabeth Steyn also serve as policy/law supervisors for the project.