When Consensys announced the acquisition of Planetary Resources in 2018—a pioneer in the embryonic, but astronomically ambitious industry of asteroid mining—the move was met by surprise in both the space and blockchain sectors. After all, what do asteroid mining and blockchain have to do with one another? With the release of
two weeks ago—on the opening day of the
International Astronautical Congress
no less—Consensys Space has
, and initiated a march towards a democratized, diversified, and decentralized future in space.
Amid projections of
a ten-to-twenty-five-fold increase
in the number of satellites in low Earth orbit, avoiding collisions between satellites is essential to the long-term sustainability of spaceflight.
is an open source, citizen-powered space sustainability system that utilizes crowdsourced data from hobbyists and professionals all over the globe, to create an independent record of satellite orbits freely accessible to anyone, fostering transparency and accountability for adherence to sustainability standards. It is also just the incremental first step in Consensys Space’s vision of the space economy.
The levels of blockchain-integration into Consensys Space endeavors are multifold, from enabling TruSat’s open, permissionless architecture, and growing to include crowdfunding to fueling a tokenized economy.
