What do companies plan to do?
2 companies, Deep space Industries (DSI) and Planetary Resources, announced their ideas for asteroid mining. Both of them did not give much information, but are going for the same goal. To make money from mining asteroids. Even though they have the same goal, they're approaching different methods to mine the asteroids.
Planetary Resources are making small, low cost telescopes to examine asteroids and see if they are good for mining. They have made a space craft named "The Interceptor" which will be used to intercept asteroids that come 10 to 30 times the earth-moon orbit (which is 27 days). Their space craft named "The Rendezvous Prospector" will be able to travel half of the solar system and bring back samples and at some point bring whole asteroids.
DSI on the other hand is going for a more aggressive approach. They currently have 2 planned spacecraft, "The Firefly" and "The Dragonfly". The Firefly is constructed from low cost materials and will prospect for available asteroids to mine. The much larger "Dragonfly" will then go and start collecting asteroid material.