I took a good bit of time away from Astrox Imperium, and coming back a lot of things feel great since the last time I played :)

But (and maybe I'm just missing something) it seems the mining mercs won't mine any "special" (mission) asteroids. Are they supposed to be able to?

They'll mine any other asteroid I target, just not the mission ones -- tried 3 separate missions (which I ended up completing with my own mining laser).

If they won't mine mission targets, as soon as I have a decent cargo capacity I guess I'll just run my own mining ship and hire combat mercs, as I'm not sure I see their long-term value.