ASTEROIDS Questions To Reduce Begins
ASTEROIDS Questions To Reduce Begins
As The Earth's non-renewable resources are fast depleting, scientists and researchers backed b companies and big industries are looking at never before explored avenues - even the deep space - to lay their hands on untapped precious resources. In fact, tapping of precious resources like water and other resources like nickel, iron, cobalt, platinum, etc. in deep space may form the backbone of future human settlement of space.
This exciting concept of mining resources in deep space has been gaining ground for quite some time. People have been eyeing precious water in the form of billions of tons of water ice on the poles of the moon and other precious resources that our Earth's only satellite holds. Private players like Shackleton Energy have plans to extract the water on Moon and turn it into rocket fuel and to create fuel stations in Earth's orbit. It aims at putting a team on the Moon within eight years, provides millions of tonnes of fuel and water and lay the foundations for space settlement because sourcing water is the first step towards creating a human civilization in space.
Now, mining on asteroids which are near our piles of earth orbit and are known as Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) is no longer in the realms of science fiction - the quest to make it a reality has already begun. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) spacecraft Osiris-Rex is already on its way to a 2000-feet wide asteroid named Bennu to find out if it's viable for extracting water and minerals.
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| MINING ASTEROIDS - GRAPHIC IMAGE SOURCES BY (NASA) |
Meanwhile, Planetary Resources has become the first private player to embark on the path of commercial deep space exploration by launching its satellite named Arkyd-6 into space on 12 January 2018. Planetary Resource's mission to study mining of prospective asteroids has an Indian connection ISRO's PSLV C-40 rocket not only successfully launched Arkyd-6 but also thirty other satellites into orbit.
Mining asteroids are striking a bell with big private players and a few countries too. Major prospective asteroid mining players like Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries to name a few, backed by investments from China's social media giant Ten Cent Holdings, best known for its popular app WeChat, is going all out to grab the precious resources of the asteroids harboring them.
The tiny European country of Luxembourg to believes in this potential. In 2017, Luxembourg's Chamber of Deputies passed a law recognizing the right to space-based resources.
In the USA, this is turning out be big stuff. In 2015, the then president of the USA Barack Obama had signed legislation recognizing asteroid resource property rights. The law recognizes the right of US citizens to own asteroid resources and encourages the commercial exploration and utilization of resources from asteroids.
The Middle East nations particularly the UAE has launched a multipronged effort to establish a space industry in which it has invested more than $5 billion, and that includes four satellites already in space and another due to be launched this year. These countries are also interested in the concept of powering space settlements using water and minerals mined from heavenly bodies.
Asteroids have water because it has been found on meteorites which have landed on the surface of the earth. They are also known to be treasure troves of precious minerals. In 2012, the American multinational investment bank Goldman Sachs had estimated that a football field-sized asteroid could contain up to $ 50 billion worth of platinum.
But all asteroids are not believed to harbor these or other precious resources. There are millions of asteroids that roam our solar system but most are thought unsuitable for mining because either they are too inaccessible or too small or thought not to hold resources of considerable value.
The initial targets for mining are those that pass through our planet's neighborhood. Many water-rich Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) are easy to access as they travel around the Sun in very similar orbits to Earth. Additionally, these small bodies have very little mass, and therefore very little gravity making it easier to extract valuable resources that they may be holding.
Here timing is everything though, the varied orbits of these asteroids mean that they are near to Earth only once every several years. The most cost-effective asteroids to mine are inexpensive enough to reach and offer large enough profits to recoup the cost.
Asterank, a database owned by Planetary Resource, is a scientific and economic database of over 600,000 asteroids They have collected, computed or inferred important data such as asteroid mass and composition from various scientific sources. With this information, they have estimated the costs and rewards of mining asteroids. The most valuable known asteroid is estimated to be worth $15 quintillion, which represents the world's total gross domestic product (about $ 80 trillion) 192,283 times over!
Let's take a look at what NASA and other major private players intend to do to explore this unexplored field of asteroid mining.
NASA's Project
NASA's Osiris Rex, which was launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida in 2016, has traveled over 1.3 billion kilometers since, orbiting the Sun for a year and hurtling past Earth to change course toward a Near Earth Asteroid called Bennu. This Near Earth Asteroid comes very close to Earth every six years and scientists estimate asteroids of this type are made of about 10 % iron and nickel.
According to NASA, in August 2018, Osiris Rex will capture its first images of Bennu and begin its 2 million km approach, reaching it in December 2018. The high gain antenna of Osiris Rex will send information between the spacecraft and the Earth. It will spend more than a year orbiting the asteroid to photograph and survey it. During its time at Bennu, the spacecraft will analyze the asteroid's shape and chemistry, sample its surface materials and collect data on its orbit so that scientists can even determine the likelihood of it crashing into Earth in the future.
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| BENNU ASTEROIDS - SOURCES BY NASA |
In July 2020, Osiris Rex will descend to Bennu's surface and retrieve up to three samples. When Osiris Rex is in place above Bennu's surface, it will extend an articulated arm with a device to collect samples, called the Touch and Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM). This will touch the surface of Bennu for about five seconds while releasing a burst of nitrogen gas. This gas will stir up surface material called regolith. TAGSAM can collect between 60 and 2000 grams of regolith over three samples.
Finally, TAGSAM's arm will put the sampler head into a capsule that will stay sealed until it is opened by scientists back on Earth. Osiris Rex will begin its return journey back to Earth in March 2021. When it is near Earth in September 2023, it will eject the sample capsule, which will parachute to the surface. This may very well turn out to be the first the US mission to retrieve a sample of an asteroid and return it to Earth to be comprehensively studied.
Planetary Resources Project-
The primary aim of Planetary Resources is to visit multiple Near Earth Asteroids and identify those that have the best sources of water. They intend to gather vital information necessary for setting up commercial mines that will harvest water for use in space. They have zeroed in on Near Earth Asteroids because they find them to be more accessible than the moon.
Planetary Resources launched their Arkyd-6 spacecraft into orbit on 12 January 2018, The spacecraft includes the core technology that is being used in the company's asteroid exploration programme, which includes a mid-wave infrared sensor, second-generation avionics, power systems, communications, and attitude determination and control systems. The A6 instrument on board Arkyd-6 is a broadband imager spanning 3 to 5 microns within the infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum. This region is sensitive to the presence of water -including that in hydrated minerals and thermal energy, allowing it to be used as a tool to search for water on Earth and beyond. It is capable of detecting water on or near-Earth asteroids.
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| OSIRIS REX -SOURCES NASA |
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| OSIRIS REX -SOURCES NASA |
The results of the Arkyd-6 mission will give the information that the company needs before it launches exploratory multiple spacecraft to asteroids, which the company intends to do in 2020. The spacecraft is planned to be deployed by a single rocket launch. The rocket will carry the exploration spacecraft just beyond the influence of Earth's gravity where they will continue their journey using low thrust ion propulsion systems They plan to have small, efficient and cost-effective robotic spacecraft's that will visit a pre-determined target asteroid to collect data and test material samples. Instead of landing on the object they plan to fire a set of surface probes to impact and embed in the asteroids and obtain a sample to perform experiments on. Data collection will include global hydration mapping and subsurface extraction, demonstrations to determine the quantity of water and the value of resources available. The information gathered will aid Planetary Resources to design, construct and deploy the first commercial mine in space.
Planetary Resources intends to process asteroid material to liberate the water and break it apart into Hydrogen and Oxygen, the two most commonly used elements in rocket fuel. They intend to produce propellants in space from the water. The water molecule consists of hydrogen and oxygen which can be refined into high-efficiency fuel. Making propellant i.e. liquid hydrogen, available in space increases the payload capacity of rockets, enables the creation of a space highway with fuel depots located at various points of need throughout the solar system and allows spacecraft to travel much farther.
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| DEEP SPACES INDUSTRIES' APPROACH TOWARDS ASTEROID MINING I.E. PROSPECTING, HARVESTING, PROCESSING AND MANUFACTURING SOURCES BY DSI & NASA |
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They also intend to mine the asteroids for structural and precious metals. Structural metals will be harvested and used as construction material in space. Precious metals will be used for in-space manufacturing of high-end electronics, laboratory equipment, and spacecraft components.
Deep Space Industries Project-
The Deep Space Industries have defined their approach towards asteroid mining in four clear phases: Prospecting, Harvesting, Processing, and Manufacturing.
1) Prospecting:
They want to use tiny scouts to locate and evaluate space resources. They will soon launch their first prospecting missions using advanced small spacecraft to explore and study Near Earth Asteroids. These prospective spacecraft shall be fitted with sophisticated scientific equipment to help them find water, metals, silicates and more.
2) Harvesting:
After prospective missions have identified the best locations for mining, they will send specialized robotic spacecraft to begin harvesting resources such as water. Using the company's next generation Comet water thrusters (simple, launch safe and cost-effective electro-thermal propulsion systems that use water as a propellant), water extracted from the target asteroid can also be used as a propellant for the return trip.
3) Processing:
Once asteroid materials are returned to near earth surface, they can be processed into fuel, drinking water, and building supplies. Harvesting spacecraft will unload their cargo to a processing complex that will start the detailed separation and evolution of materials, and getting them ready for manufacturing.
4) Manufacturing:
Manufacturing in microgravity and hard vacuum offers both opportunities and challenges. The upside of making things in space includes the ability to create very large structures that would never fit into the confines of a launch vehicle's Payload Fairing (PLF). Huge solar arrays to produce energy and enormous antenna to enhance communications
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Mining Asteroids - a simulated image (Picture credit: Deep Space Industries) satellites are among the possibilities. |
The concept of mining asteroids for water and other resources and subsequently the aim of human colonization of space may sound audacious, but it is a known fact that imagination leads to innovation and what seems farfetched or unreachable becomes a reality.
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