In situ resource utilization (ISRU) in general, and asteroid mining in particular are ideas that have been around for a long time, and for good reason. It is clear that ultimately human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit will have to utilize the material resources available in space. Historically, the lack of sufficiently capable in-space transportation has been one of the key impediments to the harvesting of near-Earth asteroid resources. With the advent of high-power (or order 40 kW) solar electric propulsion systems, that impediment is being removed. High-power solar electric propulsion (SEP) would be enabling for the exploitation of asteroid resources. The design of a 40-kW end-of-life SEP system is presented that could rendezvous with, capture, and subsequently transport a 1,000-metric-ton near-Earth asteroid back to cislunar space. The conceptual spacecraft design was developed by the Collaborative Modeling for Parametric Assessment of Space Systems (COMPASS) team at the Glenn Research Center in collaboration with the Keck Institute for Space Studies (KISS) team assembled to investigate the feasibility of an asteroid retrieval mission. Returning such an object to cislunar space would enable astronaut crews to inspect, sample, dissect, and ultimately determine how to extract the desired materials from the asteroid. This process could jump-start the entire ISRU industry.


    Access

    Access via TIB

    Check availability in my library


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    Spacecraft Conceptual Design for Returning Entire Near-Earth Asteroids


    Contributors:

    Conference:

    48th AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference ; 2012 ; Atlanta, GA, United States


    Publication date :

    2012-07-20


    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English







    Plymouth Rock: Early Human Missions to Near Earth Asteroids Using Orion Spacecraft

    Hopkins, J. / Dissel, A. / American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics | British Library Conference Proceedings | 2010


    Capturing near-Earth asteroids around Earth

    Hasnain, Zaki / Lamb, Christopher A. / Ross, Shane D. | Elsevier | 2012