Aerospace · Projected milestone

Asteroid resource mining

Estimated year~2048

22% by 2053 · including earlier years

The year is an editorial timing estimate. The percentage applies to occurrence by the stated deadline. These estimates are not calibrated odds.

Robotic craft extract water and metals from near-Earth asteroids for use in space.

What the forecast means

Milestone stage: milestone (legacy definition)

Completion criteria: Legacy milestone: refine the observable threshold before resolving.

This page describes a forecast, rather than an achieved result. Read the methodology and assumptions.

No individual source links are recorded for this milestone. Source coverage and review status vary across the atlas.

Dataset updated 2026-10-18. This individual record has not been separately re-reviewed.