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This Steam-Powered Robot Could Someday Hop Between Asteroids

Discover the prototype spacecraft for asteroid mining, WINE, designed to harvest water and use steam propulsion for exploration.

ByJake Parks

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The World is Not Enough (WINE) is a prototype spacecraft that will harvest water from targets and use that water to create steam that it will use as fuel.(Credit: University of Central Florida/Video Blocks/Victor Tangermann) Thanks to a mashup of science and industry, researchers have developed a prototype spacecraft that can mine water from an asteroid, use that water to generate steam, then use that steam as fuel to hop across the surface of an asteroid — or even jump to an entirely different world altogether. The prototype spacecraft — named The World Is Not Enough (WINE) — was largely developed by Honeybee Robotics in Pasadena, California, with plenty of help from planetary scientist Philip Metzger of the University of Central Florida. “The project has been a collaborative effort between NASA, academia and industry; and it has been a tremendous success,” said Kris Zacny, Vice President and Director of Exploration ...

  • Jake Parks

    Jake Parks is a freelance science writer and editor for Discover Magazine, who covers everything from the mysteries of the cosmos to the latest in medical research.

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