Augmented Space and Asteroid Prospecting

Solar System

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.

Explanation

2015 November litigation result about deep space explorations opened up new domains for exploiting new avenues for mining: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPACE_Act_of_2015

The kind of Asteroids that interest us are:

Dark, carbon-rich, "C-type" asteroids have high abundances of water bound up as hydrated clay minerals. C-type asteroids have is organic material – they have a lot of organic carbon, phosphorous and other key elements for fertilizer to grow your food
These "S-type" asteroids have very little water but are currently more economically relevant since they contain a significant fraction of metal, mostly iron, nickel and cobalt. A small, 10-meter (yard) S-type asteroid contains about 1,433,000 pounds (650,000 kg) of metal, with about 110 pounds (50 kg) in the form of rare metals like platinum and gold,"
There are rare asteroids with about ten times more metal in them, the metallic or "M-class" asteroids, according to Lauretta.

Our project focuses on these aspects of asteroid prospecting – we go beyond just finding feasibility of a project based on commercial value – we examine the whys and the hows of prospecting process.

We chart out the best possible route for an spacecraft – much like a Dragon here – to pass through the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The path would ideally be based on a collective score of all the information we have about asteroids and other non-plantery/microplanetary bodies – e.g. EMOID, Spectral T Type, Diameter of the body when it leaves earth. For each planetary body the spacecraft does a flyby around, it releases a dedicated nanosatellite that would orbit the body.

Once in the asteroid belt though, it will have the following new data parameters:

The new relative positions of the asteroids from the current position
New asteroids that are launched each day would be updated to it’s machine learning algorithm

The mission is prospecting – everything we know today about asteroids – their compositions, their estimated economic value are all based on flybys and distant estimations. We propose to change that – and without the expensive ideas of flying material back to earth or trying to dragnet an entire asteroid back.

Resources Used

Socrata

Data.Nasa.Gov

Wolfram Alpha

Twilio

Intel Edison