Astro Shield for Earth-Mars Cycler
Develop an approach for characterizing the composition of asteroid for mining potential and a process for mining different compositions. Explore a possible division of labor involving different types of vehicles (e.g. sensor units, drilling units, power gathering and distribution, extracted resources handling and transferring). Consider solutions for moving said asteroids between different orbits and/or consequently make periodical adjustments to keep them in place. Analyze how your idea would cope in some of the given scenarios or outline a scheme of your own.
Human deep space exploration will require the permanence of the crew in areas outside the Earth Magnetic field for several months: it will be therefore necessary to shield the habitat module to protect the crew from the radiations.
The shield would be very heavy and launching it from the Earth would be expensive. However C-type asteroids are rich in water and other elements that could provide materials that could be used for building a shield in the space.
The chosen scenario is the study of the shielding of two Aldrin Cyclers in voyage to Mars. The Cyclers are two habitat that exploit Earth flyby for a continuous trajectory between Earth and Mars, with low fuel consumption. The mission will provide the material to build an effective shield for the trip to Mars.
The mission will be carried by:
The Mining Mothership - The mothership is the hearth of the asteroid mining mission: it will store the asteroid and will house the asteroid exploitation and fetching systems. It will also deploy the Exploration satellites that will identify the target.
The Cyclers - The Cyclers are the spacecraft that will bring the astronauts from the Earth to Mars and viceversa.
The mission will have the following phases:
- Phase I: Identification of potential targets from telescope data
In the first phase it will be made an analysis on the database of the NEO to assess which ones are the most promising targets for the mission, the most relevant parameters that will be analyzed will be the asteroid class (preferably NEA-C) and orbit, considering the baseline trajectory of the Aldrin Cyclers.
- Phase II: In situ exploration and material fetching
A mothership will be sent towards a cluster of potential targets: once it is near the targets, it will deploy a series of satellites (3-6) to perform the detailed exploration of the targets.The satellites are 6U cubesats and will provide accurate data about the chemical composition, shape and gravity field of the asteroids. Once the best asteroid is identified by analyzing the data collected by the satellites, the mother ship will reach it and will fetch buolders by mean of robotic arms with grip needles and bring them to the inflatable containment vessel where it will be constrained mechanically.
- Phase III: Water\Regolith Separation
The captured boulders will be sealed inside the inflatable vessel and it will be heated: in this way the bound water will volatilize and freeze on the cold walls of the vessel while the body of the asteroid made of rocks will be positioned in the center of the vessel.
- Phase IV: Earth/Mars Cycler and rendez-vous
The spacecraft that will transport the astronauts from the Earth to Mars will be a Cycler, i.e. it will exploit the gravitation pull of the Earth and of the Red Planet to orbit around them (with few orbit adjustments). In this first cycle, there will be no crew on the Spacecraft. The Mothership and the Cycler will rendez-vous and they will start the trip back to Earth. During this phase, space 3D printers will produce the shield tiles using asteroids’ resources.
- Phase V: Shield set up
Once the cycler and Mothership have reached the Earth’s orbit, the crew will reach the spacecraft and can easily set up a 10 cm regolith/water shield around the habitat module assembling the 3D printing tiles.
- Phase VI: Crew on the Cycler
The Cycler is now shielded and the first crew can reach the habitat, that can be now a safe haven towards Mars and return.
The first human step on Mars is still far, but new technologies are making this event closer. The innovation of our proposal is to collect already existing technologies in a coherent mission concept, in particular the use of cubesat for the insitu exploration, that will increase the success probabilities of the mining mothership.
The mining technology and the 3D printing on site it is not mature yet, however a defined with a real benefit has been individuated, giving clear objectives for next studies.
http://sophia.estec.esa.int/gtoc_portal/
http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb_query.cgi#x
http://www.accion-systems.com/tile/
https://www.nasa.gov/content/what-is-nasa-s-astero...
N. Strange, D. Landau, P. Chodas, J. Longuski "Identification of retrievable Asteroids with Tisserand Criterion", AIAA/AAS Astrodynamics Specialist Conference August 2014
A. Borggrafe, M. Quatmann, D. Nolke, "Radiation protective structures on the base of a case styudy for a manned Mars mission", Acta Astronautica 65, 2009
