LITERATURE

nss
project (2023-24)
ASTEROID MINING
BY: K.SAI PRAMOD
S.SUDHEER KUMAR
D.MANAS
G.LAKSHMI JAHNAVI
 ASTERIOD MINING

INTRODUCTION:
The fictitious extraction of resources from asteroids and other small planets, such as near-
Earth objects, is known as asteroid mining.
 The high expense of space travel, the difficulty of reliably identifying asteroids that are
appropriate for mining, and the difficulties of extracting useful material in space are notable
difficulties in asteroid mining.
 Research efforts to return samples from asteroids (such as the completed missions Hayabusa
and Hayabusa-2, as well as the ongoing OSIRIS-REX) provide as an example of the
difficulties in retrieving minerals from space with existing technology.
 Less than 1 gramme of asteroid material has successfully been brought back to Earth from
space as of 2021.
 Missions currently under way promise to raise this quantity to about 60 grammes .
 Less than 1 milligram from Hayabusa, 100 milligram's from Hayabusa2, and 60 grammes
from OSIRIS-REX, compared to the size and cost of these projects ($300 million for
Hayabusa, $800 million for Hayabusa2, and $1.16 billion for OSIRIS-REX), indicate how
difficult and expensive asteroid research missions are.
 Asteroid mining aims have changed to farther-off long-term goals after a spike in interest in
the 2010s, and several "asteroid mining" businesses have switched to more multipurpose
propulsion technologies. Asteroid mining had a brief but progressive growth in its past.
 Over the years, theories on which asteroids to prospect, how to harvest resources, and what
to do with those resources change.
IS ASTEROID MINING POSSIBLE?
 Asteroid mining is largely a speculative concept due to its astronomical expense. While the costs of
commercial mining are yet unknown, comparisons may be made with NASA's OSIRIS-REX mission,
which aims to collect materials from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu.
 Earth-like methods would be employed by asteroids' miners. Scraping necessary material off the
asteroid and tunnelling into veins of certain materials seem to be the most plausible methods.
Valuable ore that floats off the asteroid will be removed by scraping, also known as strip mining.
 Recently, scientists discovered two NEAs that are rich in metals and might one day be mined for iron,
nickel, and cobalt for use on Earth or in space. They are estimated to be 85% metal, and one of them
may have more iron, nickel, and cobalt than the planet's current reserves.
 WHY THERE IS NO ASTEROID
MINING?
 Asteroid mining is largely a speculative concept due to its astronomical expense. While the costs of
commercial mining are yet unknown, comparisons may be made with NASA's OSIRIS-REX mission,
which aims to collect materials from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu.
 Asteroids are remains from the time when our solar system first formed, some 4.6 billion years ago.
 Early on, Jupiter's formation prohibited any planetary bodies from developing in the space between
Mars and Jupiter. As a result, the tiny objects that were already present collided and broke apart,
eventually producing the asteroids we know today.
 ADVANTAGES OF ASTEROID
MINING:-
 The findings suggest that advantageous for the environment mining for water from asteroids would
be as soon as the volume of water extracted exceeds the mass of the mining spacecraft.
 Because of their low gravity fields, it is simpler to set up spacecraft and mining machinery on their
surfaces. Additionally, launching from an asteroid is simpler than, say, the Earth or the Moon.
 Asteroids also have more homogeneous mineral deposits since they are not polished bodies like the
Earth and the Moon.
 "Going after valuable metals in asteroids makes no sense in the economics of today and in the near
future, the next few years.
 The reason for this is that travelling to and from asteroids is so expensive that it much outweighs the
worth of anything you might use from them.
 DISADVANTAGES OF ASTEROID
MINING:-
 The high expense of space travel, the difficulty of reliably identifying asteroids that are appropriate
for mining, and the difficulties of extracting useful material in space are notable difficulties in
asteroid mining.
 Although interruption and dust from mining operations are still likely, asteroid mining may not hurt
people in a way that is equivalent to mining on land.
 In order to test an asteroid impact avoidance system, physicist Paul Wiegert examined the dust cloud
that expanded when NASA and the European Space Agency attempted to nudge the asteroid
Didymo’s.
 On the other hand, many experts contend that asteroid mining would swiftly devastate the world raw
materials industry, which is presently worth at roughly US$660 billion.
 They assert that the quintillions of dollars' worth of material from mining asteroids would rapidly
surpass this economy.
 DOES ASTEROIDS CONTAIN GOLD AND WHAT IS ITS
WORTH?
 Asteroids literally contain enough gold and other metals to fund several lifetimes' worth of wealth.
However, there are a lot of additional factors that make asteroids important. How, then can we obtain
these metals from these distant asteroids? Bringing the space rocks to Earth may be the wisest course
of action.
 The asteroid "Davida," which has a diameter of 326 kilometers, has reportedly been identified as the
most expensive asteroid in the belt, with a resource value estimated to be at 27 quintillion
(26,990,000,000,000,000,000) U.S. dollars, according to Wired and Valerio Pellegrini.
 It has been estimated that one asteroid, 16 Psyche, holds US$700 quintillion in gold, or nearly US$93
billion for every person on earth. Such technologies may also directly affect the environment.
 DETAILS FOR ASTEROID MINING

 Prospects for acquiring essential components from mining asteroids are promising. Our solar system's asteroid
belt is made up of 75% carbonaceous (C type) asteroids and 8% metal-rich (M type) asteroids ("Asteroid
belt", 2010). Because the denser metals in asteroids, such as platinum group minerals and REEs, are spread
rather equally across the asteroid body, mining is made easier because ore grades may be unexpectedly high
with very shallow drilling.
 Asteroid mining is still a very speculative practice since the science and technology needed to effectively
utilize these mineral riches are still being developed. The capacity to sort and identify mineable resources,
create the infrastructure needed to mine and process asteroid material, and transport mined material to the
earth are all difficulties.
 According to current plans, processing facilities should be located in lunar or earthly orbits with frequent
access to the asteroid belt (Tomas wick, 2012). These facilities will be challenging to build and operate
because to their distant location, necessitating substantial advancements in robotic technology. The technology
of mining asteroids is still in its infancy and has high startup costs. Before asteroid mining becomes a
dependable source of strategic elements, other sources of those elements may be identified, and substitute
technologies may cause the demand for those elements to decline.
 PROCESS OF MINING
ASTEROIDS:-
 On asteroids, miners would employ methods akin to those utilized on our planet. The most likely
approach would be to drill into veins of certain compounds and scrape needed stuff off the asteroid.
Valuable ore will be removed by scraping or strip mining and will float off the asteroid.
 The process of digging an asteroid and extracting water and other volatiles into an inflatable bag is
known as optical mining. The Mini Bee mission idea seeks to demonstrate that optical mining may be
used to collect fuel in space when combined with other cutting-edge spacecraft technologies.
 Recently, scientists discovered two NEAs that are rich in metals and might one day be mined for iron,
nickel, and cobalt for use on Earth or in space. They are estimated to be 85% metal, and one of them
may have more iron, nickel, and cobalt than the planet's current reserves.
 ASTEROID EXTRACTION AND
PROCESSING:-

• Simple economics is the driving force behind the decision to establish a mining enterprise on an
asteroid. Despite the fact that constructing an asteroid mining will cost billions of dollars, doing so
will be much less expensive than sending goods from Earth to
• The equipment for the mine as well as food and supplies for the mining team would need to be sent
by spacecraft. Asteroid landing should be achievable with modern spacecraft. We have previously set
foot on the moon, after all, and some asteroids pass past closer to the moon than others. In
comparison to a spaceship flying to the moon, an asteroid would require less rocket power and fuel.
the moon or Mars.
• How to stop the asteroid from revolving while it is being mined will be one issue. To reduce the
asteroid's spin, some specialists advise strapping rockets to it. But how are workers going to drill into
the asteroid, process the resources they find there, and bring it back to Earth or a space colony?
 THE FIRST ASTEROID MINE'S DESIGN IS UNKNOWN WITH CERTAINTY, ALTHOUGH
THE FOLLOWING ARE SOME REASONABLE ASSUMPTIONS:-

To cut down on the amount of fuel that would need to be transported to the asteroid by
spaceship, the machinery is probably going to be solar-powered.
To be transported to the asteroid, the equipment must also be portable.
Lewis is one specialist who has advocated deploying robotic technology to reduce the
number of workers required for the mining endeavor. As a result, less supplies, like as food,
would be needed for a human journey.
On asteroids, miners would employ methods akin to those utilized on our planet. The most
likely approach would be to drill into veins of certain compounds and scrape needed stuff off
the asteroid. Valuable ore will be removed by scraping or strip mining and will float off the
asteroid.
A large cover may be employed to catch the ore as much of it will fly off.
The mining machinery and the astronaut-miners who run it must use grapples to tie
themselves to the ground since asteroids have almost no gravity. However, the absence of
gravity has the benefit of allowing for the power-efficient movement of mined material.
Rocket fuel for a ferrying spaceship might be created by splitting asteroid water into
hydrogen and oxygen after a cargo of materials is prepared to be delivered to either Earth or
a space colony.
The machinery may then be relocated to the next asteroids once the mining project has
finished using up all of one asteroid's minerals and resources.
It will be simple to transport the freshly mined resources to the moon
because there is no gravity and no atmosphere. Once there, they may be shaped into buildings
and polished!
 WHAT IS THE BIGGEST
ASTEROID?
Ceres:-
Ceres is the name of the biggest asteroid. It orbits the sun between Mars and Jupiter in the area known as the asteroid belt and
is around one-fourth the size of the moon. Ceres has a spherical form, in contrast to most asteroids.