[2022] What is the rationale to drop people with only a space suit?

In short: the UDA don't care about contractors. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZyd1e51YMo

The pinned Lore thread links to this page with a bit more info: https://surviveicarus.com/lore/

Their first act was to cannibalize the remains of the original terraforming mission. The result: the Orbital Stations. Aging factory ships had failed their original task, these were repurposed as makeshift homes for the first Icarus prospectors, who helped maintain them in return for living space and transport.

The Lagos Unit, meanwhile, was able to outsource the extraordinary risks of operating on the planet to this small and – ultimately – disposable group: The First Cohort.

As with all resource rushes, the majority of these hopefuls came from nothing. Seeking fortune, they exhausted what little wealth they had simply getting to Icarus, where basic supplies were stratospherically expensive.

So arose the popular image of the Icarus prospector: landing on the surface empty handed, adopting survival skills from another era, until such fortune arrived.