Termining

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.

• Our goal is to design an autonomous distributed asteroid mining system that utilizes swarm robotic miners called "termites" to extract materials and manipulate asteroids.

The system comprises of two major elements:

1. The Hives. A hive is a long range carrier spacecraft that hosts the Termite mining robots.
2. Survey robots. These robots form a full size asteroid scanner that accurately maps the surface using hyperspectral imaging and the interior of the asteroid using narrow beam X-Ray tomography.
   Once the structure of the asteroid is known, AI algorithms provide the mining strategy.
3. Termite robots. Each termite can extract either water or solid materials from the asteroid. Collected water is returned to the hive in order to create oxygen and hydrogen. These gasses are stored in high pressure vessels allowing both increased storage as well as utilization as fuel. Solid material is stored in the termite "abdomen", a storage space at the rear of the robot. Once full, a termite return to the hive to deposit collected materials and refuel for the next run.
   
   Once the Hive's mission is complete, it will return to the material exploitation points (Earth/Moon/Mars orbit)

1. Database for asteroids: http://www.asterank.com
2. Asteroid close approaches to Eart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_asteroid_close_approaches_to_Earth
3. Asteroid Mining of Water http://www.space.com/30582-asteroid-mining-water-propulsion.html
4. 2016 Space Apps Challenge Resources https://github.com/SpaceApps2016/Resources
5. Asteroid velocities http://www.brighthub.com/science/space/articles/64710.aspx
6. Company that constructed a plasma drill that can be used for asteroid mining http://www.zaptec.com/zapspace/#astroide
7. Planetary Resources - The Market Problem and Radical Solution: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=9&v=VLouRKHknOU
8. Deep Space industries https://deepspaceindustries.com/
9. Material Mining: http://www.permanent.com/asteroid-mining.html
10. Asteroid facts: http://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/asteroid.html
11. Zero gravity matters: http://www.sciencealert.com/watch-wtf-is-going-on-with-this-object-spinning-in-zero-gravity
12. http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/new-nasa-mission-to-help-us-learn-how-to-mine-asteroids
13. Asteroids to catch: http://www.space.com/22764-nasa-asteroid-capture-mission-candidates.html
14. Gravity assist: http://www.space.com/22764-nasa-asteroid-capture-mission-candidates.html
15. http://www.nasa.gov/feature/reconstituting-asteroids-into-mechanical-automata
16. Asteroid porosity matters: http://irtfweb.ifa.hawaii.edu/~sjb/CD07/talks/Consolmagno_slides.pdf
17. Video for osiris-rex NASA mission https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=135&v=U-VR6pNi70k
18. Material detection http://www.spectir.com/applications/geologic-airborne-hyperspectral
19. http://news.discovery.com/space/asteroids-meteors-meteorites/top-10-asteroid-deflection-130130.htm
20. Nice video with facts and numbers on near-eath asteroid mining https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVzR0kzklRE
21. http://www.universetoday.com/90798/every-way-devised-to-deflect-an-asteroid/
22. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99942_Apophis