The US space agency, NASA gave contracts to Deep Space Industries and Planetary Resources to study on asteroid redirection, after two firms announced their intentions to work on technology to mine near-Earth asteroids.

Both the companies are the first two recipients of US government contracts, which have expertise in tracking asteroids.

Planetary Resources based in Washington in the US aims to build a host of small to medium range space telescopes that will study near-Earth asteroids for economic potential. Among the company's planned telescopes are the Arkyd 100, Arkyd 200, and also Arkyd 300.

The firm will use two testbed satellites, namely Arkyd 3 and Arkyd 6 in order to study the systems as well as the design of their intended space-based telescopes.

The telescope Arkyd 100 will be a low Earth orbit telescope capable of studying the Earth as well as possible asteroid targets while Arkyd 200 has been built as an interceptor.

It will be equipped with propulsion systems, having the ability to detect asteroids travelling between the Earth and its satellite, the Moon. On the other hand, Arkyd 300 will transport upgraded propulsion systems that enable it to discover beyond the planet Earth and the Moon.

Deep Space Industries will develop a range of compact spacecraft known as FireFlies. The spacecraft will send these spacecrafts on one-way missions to gather information such as the size, density, shape, as well as composition of asteroids.

In the long run they aim to develop a spacecraft dubbed the 'Dragonfly' that will be capable of capturing asteroids and the 'Harvestors' that will collect asteroid material for its comeback to Earth.

According to the Planetary Resources website, the acquisition and mining of these asteroids will enable humanity to spread to colonies throughout the solar system. The materials mined from these asteroids will likely help in the production and development of everything from rocket fuel to consumable water.