Analyzing Near-Earth Objects for Asteroid Mining
Creators: name: Ontiveros, Matthew
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2020
Subjects: subject: Near Earth Objects
subject: Asteroid Mining
subject: Astro 98
subject: http://astrothesaurus.org/uat/1092
subject: http://astrothesaurus.org/uat/72

description: New industry advancements from rocket companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin are making asteroid mining ever more feasible and a real possibility in the future. Asteroid mining will capitalize on Near Earth Objects (NEOs) as sources for commercially profitable material, such as water and platinum group metals. To be able to profitably mine asteroids, the number of NEOs that are large enough and in range of industry rockets must be found. This research applies two different flight burn paths to calculate the delta-v requirements for a distribution of 802,000 synthetic NEOs. We find there are 198 NEOs with a delta-v requirement less than 5 km/s. Additionally, we calculate mass estimates and characteristic energy values for the synthetic distribution of NEOs. We developed estimates for the number of ore bearing asteroids with absolute magnitude, 17 &lt; H &lt; 25. We find that PGM ore-bearing asteroids are rare, yet profitable, while water-bearing asteroids are more common. Both types of ore-bearing asteroids are fractions of the overall population however - only 0.3% of asteroids are considered ore-bearing. We estimate that there are 87 PGM ore-bearing asteroids in this population. These NEOs would contain at least $1 billion in PGMs, and be accessible at a C3 12 km2/s2. Further, 22 of the 87 asteroids are primary mining targets. These 22 asteroids contain at least $10 billion in PGMs and are accessible at a C3 10 km2/s2. For asteroid mining for water, we estimate there are 2,460 ore-bearing asteroids in this population, meeting the criteria of an evaluation of $1 billion in water and a C3 12 km2/s2. Further we find that 2,063 of the 2,460 asteroids are primary targets, as they contain a $10 billion evaluation in water and have a C3 10 km2/s2.
description: Astro 98
description: {"references": ["Taylor, Anthony, A Delta-V Map of the Known Main Belt Asteroids, Junior Thesis (2016)", "Elvis, M., How many ore-bearing asteroids? Planetary and Space Science (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pss.2013.11.008i", "Carry, B., Density of Asteroids. Planetary and Space Science (2012), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pss.2012.03.009", "Granvik, M. +, Debiased orbit and absolute-magnitude distributions for near-Earth objects. Planetary and Space Science (2012), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2018.04.018", "Gleaves, A. +, A Survey of Mission Opportunities to Trans-Neptunian Objects \u02c6a Part II, Orbital Capture.AIAA/AAS Astrodynamics Specialist Conference 13 - 16 August 2012, Minneapolis, Minnesota", "Jones, R. Lynne, et al. 'Asteroid Discovery and Characterization with the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope.' Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union, vol. 10, no. S318, 2015, pp. 282\u02c6a292., doi:10.1017/s1743921315008510.", "\u02c6aHome Page.\u02c6a NEOCam, neocam.ipac.caltech.edu/.", "Spacexcmsadmin. \u02c6aCapabilities amp; Services.\u02c6a SpaceX, SpaceX, 28 Nov. 2012, www.spacex.com/about/capabilities.", "\u02c6aMission Profile.\u02c6a MAVEN, spaceflight101.com/maven/mission-profile/.", "\u02c6aAsteroid Operations.\u02c6a OSIRIS-REx Mission, www.asteroidmission.org/asteroid- operations/.", "OSIRIS-REx - Satellite Missions - EoPortal Directory, directory.eoportal.org/web/eoportal/satellite-missions/o/osiris-rex.", "Blau, Patrick. \u02c6aOSIRIS-REx Mission Profile.\u02c6a OSIRISREx Spaceflight101, spaceflight101.com/osiris-rex/osiris-rex-mission-profile/.", "\u02c6aPerformance Website - Home.\u02c6a NASA, NASA, elvperf.ksc.nasa.gov/Pages/Default.aspx.", "Kyle, Ed. New Glenn, www.spacelaunchreport.com/newglenn.html.", "https://www.spaceflightnow.com/falcon9/001/f9guide.pdf", "Conversion of AbsoluteMagnitude to Diameter, www.physics.sfasu.edu/astro/asteroids/sizemagnitude.html.", "'MetalDaily.com: Live Gold Prices, Gold Charts and Gold Headlines.' Metals Daily, www.metalsdaily.com/live-prices/pgms/", "\u02c6aTwenty Years of Tracking Near-Earth Objects.\u02c6a NASA, NASA, 23 July 2018, www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7194.", "Kramer, Katie. 'Neil DeGrasse Tyson Says Space Ventures Will Spawn First Trillionaire.' NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, 11 June 2015, www.nbcnews.com/science/space/neil-degrasse-tyson-says-space-ventures-will-spawn- first-trillionaire-n352271.", "Glester, Andrew. 'The Asteroid Trillionaires.' Physics World, 11 June 2018, physicsworld.com/a/the-asteroid-trillionaires/."]}