A private space company has a radical new plan to bag an asteroid

March 19, 2026

Here's something that might sound straight out of a sci-fi movie — an LA-based company, TransAstra, has a bold new plan to grab a small asteroid, about the size of a house, and bring it back to Earth’s neighborhood. According to Eric Berger writing in Technology, this isn’t just wild dreaming. The company says they’ve got an unnamed client on board to fund a study called the 'New Moon' mission. The idea? Wrap a giant bag around the asteroid, which weighs around 100 tons, and tow it back near our planet. Joel Sercel, TransAstra’s CEO, explains that this could turn into a floating research hub — like a mini space factory. And get this — long-term, they want to harvest raw materials directly from space instead of launching everything from Earth. As Berger points out, this kind of innovation could revolutionize how we view space resources. So, what does this mean for the future? Well, it’s a giant leap toward turning space into our backyard — and it’s happening faster than you might think.

It may sound fanciful, but a Los Angeles-based company says it has conceived of a plan to fly out to a smallish, near-Earth asteroid, throw a large bag around it, and bring the body back to a "safe" gathering point near our planet.

The company, TransAstra, said Wednesday that an unnamed customer has agreed to fund a study of its proposed "New Moon" mission to capture and relocate an asteroid approximately the size of a house, with a mass of about 100 metric tons.

"We envision it becoming a base for robotic research and development on materials processing and manufacturing," said Joel Sercel, chief executive officer of TransAstra. "Long term, instead of building space hardware on the ground and launching propellant up from the Earth, we could harvest it from raw materials in space."

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