Asteroid Mining Logistics Scott Dorrington PhD Candidate University - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Asteroid Mining Logistics

Scott Dorrington PhD Candidate University of New South Wales School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering/ Australian Centre for Space Engineering Research s.dorrington@unsw.edu.au

Basic Logistics Components

• 1. Launch
• To parking orbit or

departure hyperbola

• Capital investment ‐$C0
• 2. Earth‐Asteroid
• Heliocentric transfer
• LD, AD, TOF, ΔV
• 3. Mining Ops
• Stay‐time
• Resource Mass
• 4. Asteroid‐Earth
• Heliocentric transfer
• LD, AD, TOF, ΔV
• 5. Delivery
• Depot/Customer
• Refuel for next trip
• Revenue +$R

Basic Logistics Components

• 1. Launch
• To parking orbit or

departure hyperbola

• Capital investment ‐$C0
• 2. Earth‐Asteroid
• Heliocentric transfer
• LD, AD, TOF, ΔV
• 3. Mining Ops
• Stay‐time
• Resource Mass
• 4. Asteroid‐Earth
• Heliocentric transfer
• LD, AD, TOF, ΔV
• 5. Delivery
• Depot/Customer
• Refuel for next trip
• Revenue +$R

• P1. System Design

Q: How much mass can you extract in a single trip?

• Duration of stay‐time (from trajectories)
• Mining rate

Design optimization problem & Mine optimization problem

• Parameterize mining rate using 4 components:
• 1. Physical & chemical properties of the asteroid
• 2. Design of spacecraft & mining equipment
• 3. Operations conducted on unit blocks of ore
• 4. Shape of the mine
• Trade space optimization

– e.g. min. Total mass

IAC D4.5.2 Mining Requirements for Asteroid Ore Extraction

Mine Parameters

• P2. Supply Chain Network

Q: How much of this mass can you deliver to customers?

• Spacecraft will use fuel to deliver the resources to customers
• Reusability – extract fuel for next trip before selling
• Sellable mass

Location‐routing problem

• Orbital supply chain network
• Location of orbital nodes (parking orbits, customers, depot)
• Routes between nodes (ΔV of transfers)
• Vehicles – transport spacecraft, mining spacecraft
• Select location of orbital nodes, and route of spacecraft to

maximize total sellable mass

Candidate locations: Optimization problem: Candidate routes:

A location‐routing problem for the design of an asteroid mining supply chain network [Dorrington & Olsen, 2017] (under review, Acta Astronautica)

• P3. Multi‐trip trajectory optimization

Q: How much profit can you make from a specific asteroid?

• Total NPV over multiple trips

NPV = ‐$C0 + Σ R(1+i)-t LD (Earth‐Ast) AD (Earth‐Ast) LD (Ast‐Earth) AD (Ast‐Earth) Flight Itinerary: Ast‐Earth Earth‐Ast Cash Flow Trip 0: ‐ (LD0, AD0) ‐$C0 Trip 1: (LD1, AD1) (LD1, AD1) +$R1 Trip 2: (LD2, AD2) (LD2, AD2) +$R2 Trip T: (LDT, ADT) (LDT, ADT) +$RT

Available Trajectories – Lambert solver ‐> Porkchop plots – local optima Time‐Expanded Network – combinations of trajectories – constraints on stay‐time, wait‐time Shortest path problem – find path that maximizes NPV – NPV of each path non‐linear fn – path enumeration using DFS – adapt shortest path algorithms Use to rank asteroids based on profit, rather than single‐trip ΔV

• P4. Prospecting Approach

Q: What is the best prospecting approach?

• Flyby mission

– shape and mass measurements – limited by instruments, trajectory

• Sampling mission (orbiter/lander)

– surface mapping from orbit – sampling can confirm presence of resources

• Each mission increases certainty of presence of
• re, at the cost of extra capital cost

Flyby mission Sampling mission

* Image credit: ESA

Cost‐Risk analysis

Decision Tree

• Decisions

– send/don’t send missions

• Outcomes

– ore found/no ore found – probabilities of each occurring

• Consequences

– total cost of each approach

• Expectation value

– select prospecting approach that maximizes expected NPV

p = probability of outcome q = 1 – p = complement

Conclusion

Formulate logistics problems to optimize the design of an asteroid mining industry Problems: Q1: How much mass can you extract in a single trip?

• Design optimization problem & Mine optimization problem

Q2: How much of this mass can you delivered to customers?

• Location-routing problem

Q3: How much profit can you make from a specific asteroid?

• Shortest path problem

Q4: What is the best prospecting approach?

• Cost‐Risk analysis

Questions?

Scott Dorrington PhD Candidate University of New South Wales School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering/ Australian Centre for Space Engineering Research s.dorrington@unsw.edu.au