Deep Space Industries vs Planetary Resources

[go4mars]

And the production is controlled politically, look at diamond mining.

Total agreement about diamond mining (marketing control specifically).  I admit I don't know a lot about the dark politics of platinum mining and distribution to offer informed comment, but admit to its possible existence. 

That said, I'd like to see a company dump it on the market for so cheap that mining it on Earth doesn't make sense.  If some clever individual or group can figure out how to increase the supply by 50 times, the price perhaps drop to $50/ounce.  In addition to all of the newfound industrial uses at a given price-point, suddenly guys might be thinking about platinum electroplating for their guitar/bumper/fridge/roof tiles, etc.   

My example seems extreme from our current perspective.  But if there is a viable alternative to extensive mining and leaching with cyanide, at even a comparable price point, it's worth a look.  Crashing the price point is not a bad thing if there are better ways to do things.   

I assume the 'mining space competitively phase' will be after the 'easily reusable BFR availability phase'. 

How much more per year do we need? Double? Triple?
If the supply is increased without demand then the price will fall and the production with it.

[RocketmanUS]

And the production is controlled politically, look at diamond mining.

Total agreement about diamond mining (marketing control specifically).  I admit I don't know a lot about the dark politics of platinum mining and distribution to offer informed comment, but admit to its possible existence. 

That said, I'd like to see a company dump it on the market for so cheap that mining it on Earth doesn't make sense.  If some clever individual or group can figure out how to increase the supply by 50 times, the price perhaps drop to $50/ounce.  In addition to all of the newfound industrial uses at a given price-point, suddenly guys might be thinking about platinum electroplating for their guitar/bumper/fridge/roof tiles, etc.   

My example seems extreme from our current perspective.  But if there is a viable alternative to extensive mining and leaching with cyanide, at even a comparable price point, it's worth a look.  Crashing the price point is not a bad thing if there are better ways to do things.   

I assume the 'mining space competitively phase' will be after the 'easily reusable BFR availability phase'. 

How much more per year do we need? Double? Triple?
If the supply is increased without demand then the price will fall and the production with it.

When the price drops for launch and down mass then it can be done.
For down mass it might be possible to use inflatable capsule ( inflatable heat shield ), with one side with a hatch. Capsule shape for passive control on reentry, only need deorbit burn. Would need to be able to bring enough mass down were the metal could be sold for $50 oz.

[Robert Thompson]

I'm not catching how DSI will characterize targets so as to optimize. Will they absorb larger risk to get to suspect targets faster? My inclination is that several cooperating Palantirs of free photons will win the hare and tortoise race over a Picket's charge of expensive nucleons and reaction mass. But, to borrow K-selection and r-selection, there is a place for a swarm to decent quality platinum group targets, and a place for a hole-in-one best available target. Waiting for that info on how DSI will choose.

[RocketmanUS]

I'm not catching how DSI will characterize targets so as to optimize. Will they absorb larger risk to get to suspect targets faster? My inclination is that several cooperating Palantirs of free photons will win the hare and tortoise race over a Picket's charge of expensive nucleons and reaction mass. But, to borrow K-selection and r-selection, there is a place for a swarm to decent quality platinum group targets, and a place for a hole-in-one best available target. Waiting for that info on how DSI will choose.

For mining the first asteroid should be for propellants.
Later for in space building materials.
Long term of valuable metals.
By the time they are able ( cost effective ) return metal to Earth surface they both would have had the metal already stored in space from earlier mining as a by product.

Keep in mind the profit is not always in "$".

[Robert Thompson]

Uh-uh. I don't sense we're in a r-selection regime in space, yet. So, even for a first target with propellant-yield, the selection process (I think) has to be painstaking and exhaustive. I am wondering where they will get the info to support a painstaking and exhaustive optimization to most recoverably risk scarce investor dollars. A NASA database with orbital elements? That's it? I'm missing a verb.

[RocketmanUS]

Uh-uh. I don't sense we're in a r-selection regime in space, yet. So, even for a first target with propellant-yield, the selection process (I think) has to be painstaking and exhaustive. I am wondering where they will get the info to support a painstaking and exhaustive optimization to most recoverably risk scarce investor dollars. A NASA database with orbital elements? That's it? I'm missing a verb.

Send out 8 probes each on a different launch to reduce risk of loss. Each probe launch should be months apart to see if any changes need to be made on probes launched later.

Choose the best NEA from those that are scanned by the probes. Each probe could be able to scan more than one NEA. A NEA will need to have enough of the needed types of propellants to be mined for profit and a customer for the propellants. Their own miner could even refuel to be moved to another NEA from the mined propellants. They would need miners and tanker craft.

I think for metals they will separate the ores and transport then to a customer were they will process the ore.

I think they are others already working on how to use such space mined materials and process them. They would by the raw material from these two companies.

[JohnFornaro]

You're equating mass and/or size with capability without understanding what drives the requirements for size.

No. 

I'm not seeing any propellant in it, and once the LV sends it from Earth to point A, I don't see it really ever getting to a possible point B.

That's the "capability" I keep harping on.

Hayabusa[/url weighed 510kg wet, and 380kg dry.  That mission lasted for seven years.  True, it brought back a sample.

The cubesats from DSI and PRI are rather tiny, even if they're not scheduled to make a round trip.

I'm not believing what I hear yet.

[Robotbeat]

You're equating mass and/or size with capability without understanding what drives the requirements for size.

No. 

I'm not seeing any propellant in it, and once the LV sends it from Earth to point A, I don't see it really ever getting to a possible point B.

That's the "capability" I keep harping on.

Hayabusa weighed 510kg wet, and 380kg dry.  That mission lasted for seven years.  True, it brought back a sample.

The cubesats from DSI and PRI are rather tiny, even if they're not scheduled to make a round trip.

I'm not believing what I hear yet.

They would use cubesat components and design philosophy.

[QuantumG]

The first of anything technological is rarely a good benchmark for subsequent iterations. Typically, you either do it "better" or you don't do it at all. But hey, they could just be wildly optimistic.. we'll have to wait and see.

[Robotbeat]

The miniaturization possible with cubesat tech (through advances in the last two decades in electronics and MEMS fabrication) is a genuine advancement.  It could possibly allow PR or some such to do a deep space mission for quite cheap. Many, many cubesats have been launched to LEO, but none to deep space, though there are plans. just because larger spacecraft are usually used doesn't mean it is impossible to do it smaller.

[WiresMN]

I would suspect that each sat will have a single or limited multi purpose and be as simple as possible. It would help keep cost and size down.  Single function is a big departure from current deep space sats, but will serve the prospecting purpose well. even more so when trying something new. Fail but fail cheap!

[mlindner]

The miniaturization possible with cubesat tech (through advances in the last two decades in electronics and MEMS fabrication) is a genuine advancement.  It could possibly allow PR or some such to do a deep space mission for quite cheap. Many, many cubesats have been launched to LEO, but none to deep space, though there are plans. just because larger spacecraft are usually used doesn't mean it is impossible to do it smaller.

Yeah, I completely agree. Rather having dealt with cubesats personally, I often have a failure to understand why normal satellites are so _large_. The only things that have to scale with the spacecraft are reaction wheels. Radios are large if you are far from earth. The better an IMU, usually the larger it is for dampening. For a telescope/camera physical size is important for collection area. Besides these issues though I fail to see what makes normal satellites the size of a bus. I can't imagine what you would do with all that volume other than throw in heavy metal structure.

[QuantumG]

Massive transmitters and the power conditioning hardware to power them was always my assumption.

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

Here is the problem:

Data rate (bandwidth) is related to antenna gain and transmitter power. Either you increase the antenna gain or increase the transmitter power to get a higher data rate.

Let's say you can do 10kbits/sec data rate for a 50W transmitter and a certain sized dish antenna. In order to do 1mbits/sec data rate you increase the dish diameter by a factor of 3.16 (and a weight increase of the antenna of a factor of 10) and increase the transmitter power to 500W. The solar array to power a 50W transmitter is let's say 20sqrft (4ft X 5ft), but a solar array to power a 500W transmitter is 200sqrt (8ft X 25ft) as well as weighing 10 times more. So now you have gone from a 20kg sat to one weighing nearly 200kg. Just because you need (or want) a higher data rate.


BTW Voyager went the low (data rate) bandwidth/ low transmiter power route and it is still in communication with Earth even at the edge of the solar system. Although for significant amount of data it takes a great deal of time.

[Robotbeat]

Here is the problem:

Data rate (bandwidth) is related to antenna gain and transmitter power. Either you increase the antenna gain or increase the transmitter power to get a higher data rate.

Let's say you can do 10kbits/sec data rate for a 50W transmitter and a certain sized dish antenna. In order to do 1mbits/sec data rate you increase the dish diameter by a factor of 3.16 (and a weight increase of the antenna of a factor of 10) and increase the transmitter power to 500W. The solar array to power a 50W transmitter is let's say 20sqrft (4ft X 5ft), but a solar array to power a 500W transmitter is 200sqrt (8ft X 25ft) as well as weighing 10 times more. So now you have gone from a 20kg sat to one weighing nearly 200kg. Just because you need (or want) a higher data rate.


BTW Voyager went the low (data rate) bandwidth/ low transmiter power route and it is still in communication with Earth even at the edge of the solar system. Although for significant amount of data it takes a great deal of time.

And this is exactly why Planetary Resources is going for optical communication. It allows a far greater data rate given the same power and transmitter aperture size. This is because of the far shorter wavelength of visible or near-infrared light compared to radiowaves, which means a tiny aperture acts like an ENORMOUS dish antenna.

[Solman]

 Of course if that antenna doubles as a solar concentrator it can simultaneously communicate and provide solar power to a spacecraft traveling to Mars and beyond and be used non simultaneously in other situations. The large size concentrator required at Jupiter and beyond for power also means higher data transmission rate. The concentrator's high specific power and the higher efficiency and much higher specific power of PV using highly concentrated sunlight means dramatically higher power at Mars and beyond vs. non concentrating solar arrays.

[Lar]

And this is exactly why Planetary Resources is going for optical communication. It allows a far greater data rate given the same power and transmitter aperture size. This is because of the far shorter wavelength of visible or near-infrared light compared to radiowaves, which means a tiny aperture acts like an ENORMOUS dish antenna.

I don't quite understand how they are going to point the outbound laser accurately enough. I guess that's the 64K question, isn't it?

I have enough trouble keeping my garage door opener safety beams aligned that I would expect this to be a pretty hard thing to do. Don't you need spacecraft (or at least the transmitting laser) alignment down to thousandths of an arc-second or better??? I didn't actually run the numbers but it seems really small. Are they going to deliberately decollimate it somewhat to decrease the accuracy requirement (at the cost of increased power in transmission or a more sensitive detector or both)?

Are there ways of steering an outbound beam that don't require mechanical devices? would that help in pointing that accurately?

My LEGO models have lash that makes it hard to achieve 2 degrees accuracy, much less thousandths of an arc-second....

[Robotbeat]

Star trackers can be quite small and compact these days, and they may have a clever way to use the scope to get a fine pointing reading at nearing the same time as transmitting data. As far as steering, reaction wheels and magnetic torquers (for desaturating the reaction wheels) are what are normally used in LEO (it's what Hubble uses) and are used for some nanosats as well (some simply use just the mag. torquers or even just a passive magnetic torquer that just keeps the spin rates down), but for deep space magnetic torquers are not feasible (far from Earth's magnetic field) for desaturating the reaction wheels.

So, you can use a cold- or warm-gas thruster system or a pulse plasma system (more Isp, less integration hassle, but just a small amount of propellant) or the emerging higher performing electric propulsion systems.


Off the shelf parts for nanosats (including microsats from 10kg to 100kg), with listed prices:
Magnetic torquer:
http://www.cubesatshop.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=102&category_id=7&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=69

3-axis reaction wheels:
http://www.cubesatshop.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=52&category_id=7&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=69

Cold/warm-gas thrusters:
http://www.cubesatshop.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=74&category_id=7&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=69

Fine Sun-sensor (can get around 0.1 degree pointing precision, enough to get a target in the telescope's field of view):
http://www.cubesatshop.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=89&category_id=7&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=69

Pulse-plasma thruster (~600s Isp, but very, very low total amount of propellant available... though much better ones are available from Busek):
http://www.clyde-space.com/cubesat_shop/propulsion/303_cubesat-pulse-plasma-thruster


Good overview of higher performing propulsion options for cubesat/nanosats, not entirely off-the-shelf and definitely not a listed price, but they have been lab-tested:
http://www.busek.com/cubesatprop__main.htm

[RocketmanUS]

Communication:
1 ) For the laser communication system what is the foot print size of the beam sent from Earth and received at Mars?

Mining:
2 ) Could they bag the NEA, heat it up to extract gasses. Then grind the solid mas up in to powered to separate the powder by heavy and light mass? If in fine powder form it would seem a cheap way to separate different compounds and elements along with magnets and it's color. At least to a point were it could then be refined into what ever they needed.

Reuse and refueling:
With the mind gas they should be able to separate it so they can have some of it to refuel the miner craft and the transporter(s) craft. Miner then moves on to another NEA while the transporter(s) deliver the raw material to the processors or customers.

[mlindner]

Magnetic torquer:
http://www.cubesatshop.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=102&category_id=7&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=69

3-axis reaction wheels:
http://www.cubesatshop.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=52&category_id=7&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=69

Having worked in development of some of the above, the listed prices are very inflated compared to the actual costs of production of those devices. With a student/intern team you can pull the costs down quite a bit. This is the reason we were developing our own in-house rather than buying outside models because we viewed we could produce them of a higher quality and much cheaper than the off the shelf versions. It is very likely that any commercial company will do the same.

The magnetorquer board is a few machined parts, a PCB, some minimal microcontroller and electrical parts, an h-bridge for each torquer and a bunch of space-rated magnetwire (which can be gotten free as the wire for some reason "expires" after a certain amount of time and research groups will just dump it normally).