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Bradford Space acquired Deep Space Industries (DSI) on January 1, 2019, with financial terms undisclosed. The buyer’s immediate commercial interest was DSI’s Comet water-based propulsion system for small satellites; it also planned to continue developing DSI’s Xplorer deep-space spacecraft concept. The deal did not mark a sudden retreat from asteroid mining: DSI had already shifted much of its practical focus toward satellite propulsion, a nearer-term market.
What Bradford acquired
California-based DSI was founded in 2012 to develop technologies for prospecting for and eventually extracting resources from asteroids. Bradford, a spacecraft-systems manufacturer with existing propulsion products and European infrastructure, acquired the company on January 1, 2019. The purchase price was not disclosed. DSI’s San Jose operation and team were expected to continue under the Bradford Space Inc. name, or BSI. SpaceNews reported the deal and its stated plans.
The central commercial asset was Comet, a water-based electrothermal propulsion system for small satellites. Bradford also took on Xplorer, DSI’s proposed lower-cost spacecraft bus for missions beyond Earth orbit. The acquisition therefore combined a product aimed at current satellite customers with a longer-term deep-space option.
Why DSI’s asteroid ambitions gave way to nearer-term business
DSI’s original thesis was broader than sending a mining machine to an asteroid. It pursued spacecraft and mission concepts for prospecting, extracting water and other resources, and potentially using those materials in space. Water could, in principle, become propellant or support infrastructure without being transported back to Earth. That vision depended on a future market for resources in space, as well as the ability to locate, extract, process and store them.
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The challenge was timing and finance, not proof that asteroid resources were impossible to use. Deep-space missions demand substantial capital and long development cycles, while customers for asteroid-derived materials remained hypothetical or unproven. Meanwhile, government exploration priorities increasingly favored the Moon over near-Earth asteroid missions, and investors had reason to favor products that could sell into the growing small-satellite market sooner.
Contemporary reporting described DSI as having already moved much of its practical business focus toward small-satellite propulsion before Bradford bought it. Planetary Resources, the better-known competitor, was acquired by ConsenSys in late 2018 after difficulty securing further funding for spacecraft development. That parallel is a sign of the sector’s funding and market-timing problem, not evidence that asteroid mining was formally canceled or technically disproven. GeekWire’s coverage explains the commercial shift.
Comet: water as spacecraft propellant
Comet uses electrical energy to heat water and expel it to produce thrust. Water is the propellant, not a fuel in the ordinary chemical-rocket sense. The approach’s appeal is comparatively safe, non-toxic handling relative to hydrazine-based systems, making it potentially useful for small-satellite operators seeking maneuvering capability without the same toxic-propellant handling hazards.
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That does not make Comet risk-free or universally suitable. The system needs electrical power, and electrothermal propulsion brings warm-up and thermal-management considerations, including heat transfer back into the spacecraft. Tanks, valves, feed systems, heaters, electronics and spacecraft integration still have to be designed and qualified. Water’s benign handling profile is an advantage, not a substitute for mission engineering. NASA’s small-spacecraft technology review discusses thermal-soak-back as a design concern for electrothermal propulsion.
Comet was not simply a replacement for every propulsion option. A satellite needing moderate maneuverability and prioritizing safer propellant handling may find it attractive; a mission with limited electrical power, a need for high thrust, or a different maneuver profile may require another system. “Green propulsion” is also a broad label, not a synonym for electric propulsion: Bradford’s portfolio includes multiple propulsion approaches.
Comet-1000: dated configuration figures
An October 2019 Comet-1000 datasheet lists 17 millinewtons of thrust, a specific impulse of 175–185 seconds, 740 grams dry mass, 700 grams of propellant and 1,155 newton-seconds of total impulse. It gives power figures of 25 watts for thrusting for less than one minute and 55 watts for continuous thrust, and dimensions of 10 × 10 × 26 centimeters for the full system. These are figures for the configuration in that dated datasheet, not a confirmation of current product specifications or availability. See the Comet-1000 datasheet; prospective mission teams should request current specifications directly from Bradford.
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Flight use made Comet more than a concept
At the time of the acquisition, Comet thrusters had flown on satellites launched in December 2018 for HawkEye 360 and Capella Space. Acquisition coverage also reported planned use on LeoStella-built satellites for BlackSky. NASA’s 2026 small-spacecraft technology report later identified Bradford—formerly DSI—as having systems implemented by multiple low-Earth-orbit customers, including HawkEye 360, Capella Space and BlackSky Global. For HawkEye 360’s Pathfinder spacecraft, NASA reported approximately 96 meters per second of total delta-v capability. That is a mission-specific figure, not a universal Comet performance specification. NASA’s 2026 report provides the later implementation context.
Flight use shows that the technology found real mission applications; it does not establish broad commercial success by itself. The acquisition announcement did not disclose revenue, margins, unit sales or backlog, so those measures cannot be inferred from customer names or flight heritage.
Why Bradford was a logical buyer
Bradford already had a propulsion business, including products associated with its 2017 acquisition of Swedish propulsion company ECAPS. Comet broadened that portfolio with a different approach and a product aimed at small satellites. Bradford could bring its sales and manufacturing infrastructure to the business, while gaining DSI’s U.S. engineering base, customer relationships and product line. The combination offered potential cross-selling and technical leverage, though the public acquisition reports do not quantify resulting sales or savings.
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Bradford’s current product portfolio spans propulsion units, components and systems, as well as avionics, reaction wheels and sun sensors. That current positioning reflects a spacecraft-subsystems and mobility business, not an independent asteroid-mining company. For institutional or aerospace buyers evaluating propulsion, the fit is mission-specific: they need to compare total impulse, delta-v, thrust duration, available power, mass and volume, thermal design, handling and integration requirements, qualification, and supplier support. Public pricing is not listed on the product page.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Xplorer kept a deep-space option alive
Bradford said it would continue developing DSI’s Xplorer spacecraft bus, a concept intended to make missions beyond Earth orbit more affordable. Such a platform could potentially serve deep-space exploration, Earth-orbit departure, or a future asteroid mission. Its inclusion matters: the deal was not simply a sale of a propulsion product after abandoning all deep-space work.
But the acquisition announcement described Xplorer as a project to continue developing. It is not evidence that the spacecraft became operational, launched, or flew an asteroid-mining mission. Nor does Comet’s use of water mean that asteroid-derived water entered a commercial supply chain; the propulsion system uses water supplied as spacecraft propellant.
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The financial lesson in the deal
For space startups, enabling technology can find customers before the grand market it was designed to support. DSI’s resource-extraction vision required multiple steps—prospecting, extraction, processing, storage and a paying in-space customer base. Small-satellite propulsion addressed a much nearer need. Bradford could acquire an engineering team and a product with flight use while preserving a long-term deep-space project without having to make asteroid mining the immediate business case.
That is why “shifting from asteroids to propulsion” is directionally right but incomplete. The practical shift was already underway at DSI; Bradford consolidated the nearer-term propulsion business and retained an option on deep-space missions. The transaction was commercially meaningful, but it neither made asteroid mining viable nor proved that the idea had failed forever. It showed that, at that point, propulsion for satellites was a more immediate market than resources mined in space.
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