Planetary Resources

[simonbp]

Also, in ground-based optical/infrared full-phase interferometry, so much light is lost after bouncing off countless mirrors that you're lucky if you're left with 1% of the original light at the image sensor. Therefore, it usually only works with bright sources.

Tell me about it. I need super high resolution imagery to prove the major theory in my dissertation (few milliarcsecond in visual), but all the objects I want to look at are >20 magnitude. So, despite having access to a massive interferometer, it's entirely useless to me...

Nanosats (Arkyd included) do sound like the future of testing out the fancier space interferometer techniques, though I do wonder about positioning. LEO is not a very stable place due the Earth's lumpy gravity field; indeed, the two highest-precision formation fliers (GRACE and GRAIL) exploited that fact specifically to measure the gravity field of Earth and the Moon, respectively.

So, it would seem to make sense that any functional interferometer setup is going to be in a low-perturbation orbit (e.g. ESL-2, GEO). That would work great for the second generation of Arkyds, but probably puts the kibosh on the earlier ones doing it.

[Robotbeat]

Also, in ground-based optical/infrared full-phase interferometry, so much light is lost after bouncing off countless mirrors that you're lucky if you're left with 1% of the original light at the image sensor. Therefore, it usually only works with bright sources.

Tell me about it. I need super high resolution imagery to prove the major theory in my dissertation (few milliarcsecond in visual), but all the objects I want to look at are >20 magnitude. So, despite having access to a massive interferometer, it's entirely useless to me...

Nanosats (Arkyd included) do sound like the future of testing out the fancier space interferometer techniques, though I do wonder about positioning. LEO is not a very stable place due the Earth's lumpy gravity field; indeed, the two highest-precision formation fliers (GRACE and GRAIL) exploited that fact specifically to measure the gravity field of Earth and the Moon, respectively.

So, it would seem to make sense that any functional interferometer setup is going to be in a low-perturbation orbit (e.g. ESL-2, GEO). That would work great for the second generation of Arkyds, but probably puts the kibosh on the earlier ones doing it.

That's also the nice thing about intensity correlation imaging. You should be able to take into account the gravity field in post-processing instead of up-front. I really hope we see more research into this promising technique. I suppose I haven't picked a Masters topic, yet...

[neilh]

Also, in ground-based optical/infrared full-phase interferometry, so much light is lost after bouncing off countless mirrors that you're lucky if you're left with 1% of the original light at the image sensor. Therefore, it usually only works with bright sources.

Tell me about it. I need super high resolution imagery to prove the major theory in my dissertation (few milliarcsecond in visual), but all the objects I want to look at are >20 magnitude. So, despite having access to a massive interferometer, it's entirely useless to me...

Nanosats (Arkyd included) do sound like the future of testing out the fancier space interferometer techniques, though I do wonder about positioning. LEO is not a very stable place due the Earth's lumpy gravity field; indeed, the two highest-precision formation fliers (GRACE and GRAIL) exploited that fact specifically to measure the gravity field of Earth and the Moon, respectively.

So, it would seem to make sense that any functional interferometer setup is going to be in a low-perturbation orbit (e.g. ESL-2, GEO). That would work great for the second generation of Arkyds, but probably puts the kibosh on the earlier ones doing it.

That's also the nice thing about intensity correlation imaging. You should be able to take into account the gravity field in post-processing instead of up-front. I really hope we see more research into this promising technique. I suppose I haven't picked a Masters topic, yet...

I could've sworn I remember seeing something about how intensity correlation imaging requires larger apertures to be fully effective, but can't find a reference off-hand...

[Robotbeat]

Also, in ground-based optical/infrared full-phase interferometry, so much light is lost after bouncing off countless mirrors that you're lucky if you're left with 1% of the original light at the image sensor. Therefore, it usually only works with bright sources.

Tell me about it. I need super high resolution imagery to prove the major theory in my dissertation (few milliarcsecond in visual), but all the objects I want to look at are >20 magnitude. So, despite having access to a massive interferometer, it's entirely useless to me...

Nanosats (Arkyd included) do sound like the future of testing out the fancier space interferometer techniques, though I do wonder about positioning. LEO is not a very stable place due the Earth's lumpy gravity field; indeed, the two highest-precision formation fliers (GRACE and GRAIL) exploited that fact specifically to measure the gravity field of Earth and the Moon, respectively.

So, it would seem to make sense that any functional interferometer setup is going to be in a low-perturbation orbit (e.g. ESL-2, GEO). That would work great for the second generation of Arkyds, but probably puts the kibosh on the earlier ones doing it.

That's also the nice thing about intensity correlation imaging. You should be able to take into account the gravity field in post-processing instead of up-front. I really hope we see more research into this promising technique. I suppose I haven't picked a Masters topic, yet...

I could've sworn I remember seeing something about how intensity correlation imaging requires larger apertures to be fully effective, but can't find a reference off-hand...

9-inch per-telescope apertures work good enough, according to what I've seen in papers so far. Now, if you're talking of the virtual aperture (i.e. baseline length), than that would be pretty easy to scale up!

[simonbp]

Somewhat easy; you still need to have line-of-sight, and having more than two nodes would be tricky for LEO formation flying, so again LEO is a bummer. But, a 200 km diameter swarm at ESL-2 should be doable (assuming they have propulsion systems).

[as58]

I could've sworn I remember seeing something about how intensity correlation imaging requires larger apertures to be fully effective, but can't find a reference off-hand...

9-inch per-telescope apertures work good enough, according to what I've seen in papers so far. Now, if you're talking of the virtual aperture (i.e. baseline length), than that would be pretty easy to scale up!

This could be useful reading:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1204.3624

You really need to have big light collectors, but they do not need to be of very high optical quality. Intensity interferometry is also not that sensitive to atmospheric disturbances, so it can be done quite well on the ground.

[david1971]

Interview with an MIT planetary scientist who is involved in the project:

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/05/robots-platinum-and-tiny-space-telescopes-the-pitch-for-mining-asteroids/256523/

[Mongo62]

A relevant website:

Asterank

From their Home Page:

Asterank is an economic and scientific catalog of over 580,000 asteroids in our solar system

Overview

Asteroid mining has been in the news recently. Companies like Planetary Resources are an exciting take on the commercial viability of space industry. But how realistic are the trillion dollar estimates? How much would it cost to mine an object millions of miles away?

We've collected, computed, or inferred important data points such as asteroid mass and composition using scraped data from multiple scientific sources. With this information, we estimate the costs and rewards of mining rocks in space.

Data

Details on orbits and basic physical parameters are mostly sourced from JPL data. Composition data is harder to come by. We make generalizations about asteroids based on their spectral classification and size. Although scientists know very little about the actual composition of different classes of asteroids, our calculations incorporate conclusions from multiple scientific publications in addition to cross-referencing known meteorite data.

The data on these objects are public but very sparse. It's 2012 and there are no "experts" in this field. Assumptions are made.

[go4mars]

Interview with an MIT planetary scientist who is involved in the project:

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/05/robots-platinum-and-tiny-space-telescopes-the-pitch-for-mining-asteroids/256523/

A few "nuggets":

anyone could have a space telescope on the order of one to ten million dollars...   Planetary Resources can build telescopes that they can sell, and they can build the same telescopes to use themselves for their own asteroid detection and characterization goals... I think that in academia we could learn a lot from the business world...In the private spaceflight world there are focused goals with profit and new capability as priorities. At NASA the motivation for space missions is different...for the big space companies the whole competition is just getting the government contract. The competition is not about making something awesomely cool, first to market, and making a ton of money out of it... 7 meters in diameter, which corresponds to a mass in the range of 300,000-700,000 kilograms...

  Interesting read.  Thanks for posting it.   

[Danderman]

A few "nuggets":

. 7 meters in diameter, which corresponds to a mass in the range of 300,000-700,000 kilograms...

 

At 100 parts per million, a 700,000 kilogram rock would provide 70 kilograms of platinum, after refining. This translates to about $103 million dollars at current prices.

I believe it would cost more than $103 million to bring that rock back to lunar orbit, return ore to Earth and refining costs (whether in space or on the ground).
 

[Mongo62]

It would obviously not be cost-effective to recover and process a 7m rock.  I would expect that they would try to maximize their profit margin, which would suggest going after the largest asteroid(s) that meets their criteria.  That way, they can send a mining mission to a large asteroid, that could keep busy for a long time, stockpiling metals and periodically sending loads back when the orbital configurations allow.

[Danderman]

It would obviously not be cost-effective to recover and process a 7m rock.  I would expect that they would try to maximize their profit margin, which would suggest going after the largest asteroid(s) that meets their criteria.  That way, they can send a mining mission to a large asteroid, that could keep busy for a long time, stockpiling metals and periodically sending loads back when the orbital configurations allow.

I believe that the company has indicated that they are looking for rocks about 7 - 10 meters in size, due to the difficulty of moving objects much greater than a million tons of mass.

BTW, you seem to suggesting that if the company would lose a lot of money dealing with 700,000 kilogram sized objects, they can make it up with volume.

The above sentence was a joke.

[Mongo62]

BTW, you seem to suggesting that if the company would lose a lot of money dealing with 700,000 kilogram sized objects, they can make it up with volume.

The above sentence was a joke.

I know that you are joking, but I should explicitly state that if your fixed costs are about the same regardless of the size of the target asteroid (you still have to send a (presumably) similarly-sized mining/processing plant out to each asteroid), you want to make sure that your target asteroid is big enough to recover all the sunk costs including interest.  In general, if you have two target asteroids with the same composition and the same delta V requirements, it would be better to go for the larger asteroid -- none of this 7-metre diameter nonsense, which could not possibly produce enough product to repay the costs!

[krytek]

A few "nuggets":

. 7 meters in diameter, which corresponds to a mass in the range of 300,000-700,000 kilograms...

 

At 100 parts per million, a 700,000 kilogram rock would provide 70 kilograms of platinum, after refining. This translates to about $103 million dollars at current prices.

I believe it would cost more than $103 million to bring that rock back to lunar orbit, return ore to Earth and refining costs (whether in space or on the ground).
 

Platinum is not their main target

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

A "water" asteriod contains 22% water, so a 700,000kg asteriod whose water in high Lunar orbit is worth $20,000/kg would yeild  just in water $3B!

[Owen]

Interview with Chris Lewicki on The Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast.

http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=357

Starts about 38min in.

[Danderman]

A "water" asteriod contains 22% water, so a 700,000kg asteriod whose water in high Lunar orbit is worth $20,000/kg would yeild  just in water $3B!

Name the customer who has $3 billion in their budget to pay for that water.

If you say "NASA", let me introduce you to Helium-3, and its customer the "Department of Energy".

[MP99]

A "water" asteriod contains 22% water, so a 700,000kg asteriod whose water in high Lunar orbit is worth $20,000/kg would yeild  just in water $3B!

Name the customer who has $3 billion in their budget to pay for that water.

If you say "NASA", let me introduce you to Helium-3, and its customer the "Department of Energy".

I'm gonna say NASA Mars missions, but suggest that $3b might be over many years / multiple missions.

If the business strategy relies on producing and storing hydrolox, ISTM that PR should be in the business of providing both the propellant and the stage to burn it to provide dV. Within NASA's strategy, that would take the place of CPS b2. The payload would dock to the ready-fuelled stage.


If SpaceX ever get to the stage of a go-it-alone Mars mission, I could see them buying such a service, too.

cheers, Martin

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

A "water" asteriod contains 22% water, so a 700,000kg asteriod whose water in high Lunar orbit is worth $20,000/kg would yeild  just in water $3B!

Name the customer who has $3 billion in their budget to pay for that water.

If you say "NASA", let me introduce you to Helium-3, and its customer the "Department of Energy".

I'm gonna say NASA Mars missions, but suggest that $3b might be over many years / multiple missions.

If the business strategy relies on producing and storing hydrolox, ISTM that PR should be in the business of providing both the propellant and the stage to burn it to provide dV. Within NASA's strategy, that would take the place of CPS b2. The payload would dock to the ready-fuelled stage.


If SpaceX ever get to the stage of a go-it-alone Mars mission, I could see them buying such a service, too.

cheers, Martin

Just because the average cost of getting 154mt of propellant to EML2 would be $3B does not mean that it would be sold for that amount.

Here are the absolute minimum costs for three of the cheapest LV’s to deliver 154mt of prop to EML2:
FH – 9 flights for > $1.2B
SLS – 4 flights for > $2B
Atlas V – 18 flights for > $4.5B

Also, used in a reusable lunar lander, 154mt of propellant would represent 3 to 6 missions. At a rate of 2 missions per year that’s 1.5 to 3 years, or a purchase of $.5 to $1B per mission possibly even as low as $150M to $300M per mission depending on the sale price.

Also remember that the asteroid retrieval spacecraft, the asteroid processor and depot can be used for multiple asteroids so $3B in in-space equipment to process 5 asteroids would yield $2B in profit at a price of $1B per asteroid, a price of $6,667/kg at EML2. 5 asteroids over a period of 10 years represent an equivalent of 20 SLS flights, 45 FH flights or 90 Atlas V flights over 10 years.

[MP99]

Danderman's objection didn't seem to take into account that the money could come over multiple years as demand / budget allowed. If it's cheaper than sending from Earth, and doesn't screw up the costs-per-launch by reducing the launch rate then it seems to be financially attractive.

cheers, Martin