Steam spacecraft could exploit asteroids "forever," say scientists

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A steam-powered spacecraft was created to one day be able to move from an asteroid to an asteroid, extracting water to fuel its journey.

Scientists say their microwave-sized device could theoretically travel through space "forever," with an infinite supply of fuel to propel their rockets.

The prototype of NASA, called the World Is Not Enough (WINE), was developed by scientists in partnership with a California robotics company.

Planetary researcher Dr. Phil Metzger of the University of Central Florida worked on computer modeling that allowed Honeybee Robotics to create the device.

The spacecraft's first attempts were conducted in the laboratory using simulated asteroid material at the end of December.

"It's incredible," Dr. Metzger said.

"WINE successfully extracted the ground, made a rocket propeller and threw itself into a jet of steam extracted from the simulant.

"We could use this technology to jump on the Moon, Ceres, Europe, Titan, Pluto, the Mercury poles, asteroids – wherever there is water and gravity low enough."

The craft prototype WINE (University of Central Florida)

Kris Zacny, vice president of Honeybee Robotics, said that this new species of spacecraft has "the potential to change the way we explore the universe."

Devices may work in different ways depending on where they are deployed.

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rightCreated with Sketch.

1/30 Land of the ISS

From the International Space Station, flight engineer Terry W. Virts of Expedition 42 took this photograph of the Gulf of Mexico and the United States Gulf Coast at sunset.

Nasa

2/30 Icy slopes of Mars

This image of an area on the surface of Mars, approximately 1.5 by 3 kilometers in size, shows frosted ravines on a hillside facing south inside a crater. The image was taken by NASA's HiRISE camera, which is mounted on its Mars Reconaissance Orbiter

Nasa

3/30 Orion capsule splashes down

Orion's capsule gushed into space before returning a few hours later – having proved that it can be used one day to transport humans to Mars.

Nasa

4/30 The launch of the Soyuz TMA-15M rocket

The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday, November 24, 2014, carrying three new astronauts to the International Space Station. He also took caviar, ready for the inhabitants of the satellite to celebrate the holidays

Nasa

5/30 Space Yellowstone

NASA Astronaut Reid Wiseman shared this image of Yellowstone through his Twitter account.

Nasa

6/30 Black Hole Friday

NASA celebrated Black Friday staring into space – sharing photos of black holes

Nasa

7/30 NuSTAR

X-rays drip from the sun in this image, showing observations of NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, superimposed on a photo taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO)

Nasa

8/30 Saturn

This near infrared colored image shows a specular reflection, or sunglint, outside a lake of hydrocarbons called Kivu Lacus on the moon of Saturn Titan

Nasa

9/30 Words aside

Although Mimas and Pandora, shown here, both orbit Saturn, they are very different moons. Pandora, "small" by the moon's standards (50 miles or 81 kilometers in diameter) is elongated and irregularly shaped. Mimas (246 miles or 396 kilometers in diameter), a "medium-sized" moon, formed in a sphere due to the self-imposed gravity by its highest mass

Nasa

10/30 Solar explosion

A solar flare of class X1.6 flashes in the middle of the sun in this image taken on September 10, captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory

Nasa

11/30 Solar explosion

An image of NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows a 200,000-mile solar filament ripping the solar corona in September 2013

Nasa

12/30 Cassiopeia A c

A fake colored image of Cassiopeia A, made up of data from the Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes and the Chandra X-Ray observatory

Nasa

13/30 Great Magellanic Cloud Galaxy

An image of the Great Magellanic Cloud Galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory. Regions of space like this are where new stars are born of a mixture of elements and cosmic dust

Nasa

14/30 Spirit of Mars Rover

NASA's Mars Rover Spirit took the first picture of Spirit, as communication problems began a week earlier. The image shows the robotic arm extended to the rock called Adirondack

Nasa

15/30 Morning dawn from space station

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly captures this photograph of the green lights of the dawn of the International Space Station

16/30 Launching History – Making the STS-41G Mission in 1984

The Space Shuttle Challenger launches from Florida at dawn. In this mission, Kathryn Sullivan became the first US woman to make a space walk and Marc Garneau became the first Canadian in space. The seven-person crew was the largest to fly in a spacecraft at the time, and the STS-41G was the first flight to include two astronauts

17/30 A new perspective on an extraordinary cluster of galaxies

Clusters of galaxies are often described by superlatives. After all, they are huge conglomerates of galaxies, hot gas and dark matter and represent the largest structures of the Universe united by gravity

18/30 Remnant Supernova Nebula Veil

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has revealed in striking detail a small section of the Veil Nebula – expanding the remains of a massive star that exploded some 8,000 years ago

19/30 Hubble sees a galactic sunflower

The arrangement of the spiral arms in the Messier 63 galaxy, seen here in an image of the NASA Hubble Space Telescope, recalls the pattern in the center of a sunflower

20/30 A Cosmic Hubble Couple

The spectacular cosmic pairing of the star Hen 2-427 – more commonly known as WR 124 – and the nebula M1-67 surrounding it

21/30 Image of Pluto

Four images from the New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) were combined with color data from the Ralph instrument to create this improved color vision of Pluto.

22/30 Fresh crater near the Sirenum Fossae region of Mars

The HiRISE camera, aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, acquired this close-up image of a "fresh" impact crater (in geological scale, though quite old on a human scale) in the Sirenum Fossae region on Mars. This impact crater seems relatively recent as it has a sharp edge and well preserved ejection

23/30 Observations of the Earth of Gemini IV in 1965

This photograph of the Strait of Florida and the Grand Bahama Bank was taken during the Gemini IV mission during orbit n. 19 in 1965. The Gemini IV crew conducted scientific experiments, including Earth time and terrain photography, for the remainder of their four-day mission after Ed White's historic space walk on June 3.

24/30 NASA celebrates 50 years of space walk

For 50 years, NASA has "adapted" to the space walk. In this 1984 photo of the first free spacewalk, NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless is in the midst of the first "field" test of a nitrogen-powered backpack device called the Maneuvered Drive Unit (MMU)

25/30 Hubble lurks the most populous place in the Milky Way

This image from the NASA Hubble Space Telescope features the Arcs Cluster, the densest stellar cluster in the Milky Way

26/30 The vision of an astronaut from space

NASA Astronaut Reid Wiseman tweeted this photo of the International Space Station on September 2, 2014

27/30 Giant Landform on Mars

On Mars, we can see four classes of sandy shapes formed by the wind, or eolytic forms: ripples, transverse winding chains, dunes and what is called "draa".

28/30 Expedition 39 Landing

A sokol helmet can be seen against the Soyuz TMA-11M capsule window shortly after the spacecraft landed with Expedition Command 39 Koichi Wakata of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos and Engineer of Flight Rick Mastracchio from NASA near the city of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan

29/30 Large red spot of Jupiter seen by Voyager I

30/30 Chandra observatory sees a heart in the dark

1/30 Land of the ISS

From the International Space Station, flight engineer Terry W. Virts of Expedition 42 took this photograph of the Gulf of Mexico and the United States Gulf Coast at sunset.

Nasa

2/30 Icy slopes of Mars

This image of an area on the surface of Mars, approximately 1.5 by 3 kilometers in size, shows frosted ravines on a hillside facing south inside a crater. The image was taken by NASA's HiRISE camera, which is mounted on its Mars Reconaissance Orbiter

Nasa

3/30 Orion capsule splashes down

Orion's capsule gushed into space before returning a few hours later – having proved that it can be used one day to transport humans to Mars.

Nasa

4/30 The launch of the Soyuz TMA-15M rocket

The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday, November 24, 2014, carrying three new astronauts to the International Space Station. He also took caviar, ready for the inhabitants of the satellite to celebrate the holidays

Nasa

5/30 Space Yellowstone

NASA Astronaut Reid Wiseman shared this image of Yellowstone through his Twitter account.

Nasa

6/30 Black Hole Friday

NASA celebrated Black Friday staring into space – sharing photos of black holes

Nasa

7/30 NuSTAR

X-rays drip from the sun in this image, showing observations of NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, superimposed on a photo taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO)

Nasa

8/30 Saturn

This near infrared colored image shows a specular reflection, or sunglint, outside a lake of hydrocarbons called Kivu Lacus on the moon of Saturn Titan

Nasa

9/30 Words aside

Although Mimas and Pandora, shown here, both orbit Saturn, they are very different moons. Pandora, "small" by the moon's standards (50 miles or 81 kilometers in diameter) is elongated and irregularly shaped. Mimas (246 miles or 396 kilometers in diameter), a "medium-sized" moon, formed in a sphere due to the self-imposed gravity by its highest mass

Nasa

10/30 Solar explosion

A solar flare of class X1.6 flashes in the middle of the sun in this image taken on September 10, captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory

Nasa

11/30 Solar explosion

An image of NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows a 200,000-mile solar filament ripping the solar corona in September 2013

Nasa

12/30 Cassiopeia A c

A fake colored image of Cassiopeia A, made up of data from the Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes and the Chandra X-Ray observatory

Nasa

13/30 Great Magellanic Cloud Galaxy

An image of the Great Magellanic Cloud Galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory. Regions of space like this are where new stars are born of a mixture of elements and cosmic dust

Nasa

14/30 Spirit of Mars Rover

NASA's Mars Rover Spirit took the first picture of Spirit, as communication problems began a week earlier. The image shows the robotic arm extended to the rock called Adirondack

Nasa

15/30 Morning dawn from space station

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly captures this photograph of the green lights of the dawn of the International Space Station

16/30 Launching History – Making the STS-41G Mission in 1984

The Space Shuttle Challenger launches from Florida at dawn. In this mission, Kathryn Sullivan became the first US woman to make a space walk and Marc Garneau became the first Canadian in space. The seven-person crew was the largest to fly in a spacecraft at the time, and the STS-41G was the first flight to include two astronauts

17/30 A new perspective on an extraordinary cluster of galaxies

Clusters of galaxies are often described by superlatives. After all, they are huge conglomerates of galaxies, hot gas and dark matter and represent the largest structures of the Universe united by gravity

18/30 Remnant Supernova Nebula Veil

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has revealed in striking detail a small section of the Veil Nebula – expanding the remains of a massive star that exploded some 8,000 years ago

19/30 Hubble sees a galactic sunflower

The arrangement of the spiral arms in the Messier 63 galaxy, seen here in an image of the NASA Hubble Space Telescope, recalls the pattern in the center of a sunflower

20/30 A Cosmic Hubble Couple

The spectacular cosmic pairing of the star Hen 2-427 – more commonly known as WR 124 – and the nebula M1-67 surrounding it

21/30 Image of Pluto

Four images from the New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) were combined with color data from the Ralph instrument to create this improved color vision of Pluto.

22/30 Fresh crater near the Sirenum Fossae region of Mars

The HiRISE camera, aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, acquired this close-up image of a "fresh" impact crater (in geological scale, though quite old on a human scale) in the Sirenum Fossae region on Mars. This impact crater seems relatively recent as it has a sharp edge and well preserved ejection

23/30 Observations of the Earth of Gemini IV in 1965

This photograph of the Strait of Florida and the Grand Bahama Bank was taken during the Gemini IV mission during orbit n. 19 in 1965. The Gemini IV crew conducted scientific experiments, including Earth time and terrain photography, for the remainder of their four-day mission after Ed White's historic space walk on June 3.

24/30 NASA celebrates 50 years of space walk

For 50 years, NASA has "adapted" to the space walk. In this 1984 photo of the first free spacewalk, NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless is in the midst of the first "field" test of a nitrogen-powered backpack device called the Maneuvered Drive Unit (MMU)

25/30 Hubble lurks the most populous place in the Milky Way

This image from the NASA Hubble Space Telescope features the Arcs Cluster, the densest stellar cluster in the Milky Way

26/30 The vision of an astronaut from space

NASA Astronaut Reid Wiseman tweeted this photo of the International Space Station on September 2, 2014

27/30 Giant Landform on Mars

On Mars, we can see four classes of sandy shapes formed by the wind, or eolytic forms: ripples, transverse winding chains, dunes and what is called "draa".

28/30 Expedition 39 Landing

A sokol helmet can be seen against the Soyuz TMA-11M capsule window shortly after the spacecraft landed with Expedition Command 39 Koichi Wakata of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos and Engineer of Flight Rick Mastracchio from NASA near the city of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan

29/30 Large red spot of Jupiter seen by Voyager I

30/30 Chandra observatory sees a heart in the dark

Solar panels can be used to provide energy for mining and steam production, which can then be used to propel the vessel from the surface of a planet or asteroid back into space.

Alternatively, if it were operating further away from the Sun – for example, on Pluto – it could make use of radioactive material onboard gradually decaying to provide energy.

Currently missions to other planets need to stop when the spacecraft runs out of propellant, which means the loss of an enormous amount of time and money.

Chinese spacecraft seen landing on the far side of the moon in new images

The WINE project was supported by NASA's small business technology transfer program, which aims to promote links between universities and businesses.

Honeybee Robotics specializes in the creation of space drilling tools as well as systems for finding life on other planets.

The WINE project encompasses the company's Spider Water Extraction System, designed to drill the surface of asteroids and extract samples of dry soil that can be sucked dry.

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