Planetary’s Chris Lewicki (CEO) and Brian Israel (general counsel) have subsequently joined the board of ConsenSys. Both of them have previously worked in the Space field, where Lewicki was Flight Director of the Spirit & Opportunity Mars rovers and Phoenix Mars lander in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at NASA. Israel was responsible for the matters related to the international legal dimensions of outer space and environmental governance at the U.S. State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser.
Planetary Resources was a pioneer in the field of space exploration and possible asteroid mining for resources. Since its establishment in 2012, the company has concluded several space-related projects, including the launch of 2 satellites into orbit around the Earth and a test of an infrared imager, which proved to be a success.
Going into this new chapter of the company’s development, Lewiski released a statement in which he thanked the team and supporters, adding that in the future, Planetary Resources will continue to pursue their goals and "to expand humanity's economic sphere of influence into the solar system."
Financial difficulties led to the acquisition and the reformed ConsenSys will operate from Planetary Resources’ former facility in Redmond, Washington. With the expertise of Planetary, the new company will now have the opportunity to explore and conduct more space initiatives.
As ConsenSys founder Joe Lubin says: "Bringing deep space capabilities into the ConsenSys ecosystem reflects our belief in the potential for Ethereum to help humanity craft new societal rule systems through automated trust and guaranteed execution. It reflects our belief in democratizing and decentralizing space endeavors to unite our species and unlock the untapped human potential".
Brian Israel believes that the smart contract functionality holds the future, as it is a way for commerce in space and it is not limited by territorial, which in turn allows coordination and transaction executions from people from all parts of the world, and hopefully, soon in space as well. In the same spirit, Joe Lubin said that in ConsenSys they are looking forward to the new successes ahead of the team.