Asteroids can be a place mining of ores and minerals in the moment when their path passes by the Earth, because the American company Space Industries plans to launch its first exploration vehicle by 2015.

The company announced that it intends to run a group of unmanned ships that can intercept a small asteroids and may be able to find metals such as platinum.

Unmanned ship will have a mass of 25 kg and will be constructed using cheaper components. Each mission will have a duration of two to six months.

The potential profit of the project is huge. In the spring of last year, it was estimated that one of the asteroids in our Solar system contains mineral resources in the amount of $95.8 billion. This is almost equal to the annual GDP of the entire world.

However, it is not clear who will be considered the owner of asteroids orbiting the near-earth space, as in accordance with the Global compact in the space of 1967 outer space is a "public domain".