The private sector’s role in unmanned space operations - such as the manufacture of satellites and robotic spacecraft -- is nothing new.

私营机构参与非载人太空开发已经不是新鲜事，例如卫星和机器人太空船的制造等。

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The Russian Phobos-Grunt robotic spacecraft is scheduled to launch toward Phobos later this year and return surface samples in 2014.

“火卫一步兵”探测器预计在今年晚些时候登陆火卫一，并于2014年取回地表样本。

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The robotic spacecraft MESSENGER found out as it looked toward the Earth during its closest approach to the Sun about three months ago.

当太空探测器信使号在三个月前到达离太阳最近的地方并回望地球时，它找到了答案。

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And in the next few years we're likely to see a number of robotic spacecraft demonstrate the rendezvous and capture technologies that would be needed in these selective culls.

BBC: Space debris: Time to clean up the sky

It involves the docking a small robotic spacecraft onto the surface of an asteroid and then using the same propulsion unit that got it there to push the asteroid off its course.

CNN: Space's threat to civilization

"In a nutshell, the plan in NASA's hands calls for catching an asteroid with a robotic spacecraft and towing it back toward Earth, where it would then be placed in a stable orbit around the moon, " read a statement from the office of Florida Sen.

CNN: Forget falling stars: NASA plans to catch an asteroid