Asteroid Mining is the process of removing ice, minerals and metals from asteroids for commercial purposes.
Raw materials are at a premium as humanity expands its presence throughout the Sol system. Key elements needed for modern industry and food production, including phosphorus, antimony, zinc, tin, lead, indium, silver, gold and copper as well as platinum, cobalt and other valuable elements from asteroids are mined for profit.
The inner planet asteroid groups, such as the Aten Asteroids sunward of Earth’s Orbit, have been accessible since the first days of humanity’s expansion into space, and so they were some of the first to be mined. The mining of titanium, platinum and nickel-iron had made large fortunes. The invention of the Epstein Drive and subsequent push out into the main Asteroid Belt and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn had left the inner planet asteroids behind. Later, as mining technologies improved, ore that had been exhausted generations before was rich enough for Sundivers to use the new techniques to wring out a little more.
(Note: Sundivers is the name given to miners out of Luna that prospect the Aten Asteroids. Prospecting the Aten Asteroids closer to Sol, Sundivers are willing to add the Sun’s punishing light to their drive's waste heat. It is a good way for a crap ship to raise enough money to upgrade, or a good way to lose everything, or to die.)
C-type asteroids have a high abundance of water and organic carbon, phosphorus, and other key ingredients for fertilizer which can be used to grow food.
S-type asteroids carry little water but contain numerous metals including: nickel, cobalt and more valuable metals such as gold, platinum and rhodium. A small 10-meter S-type asteroid contains about 650,000 kg of metal with 50 kg in the form of rare metals like platinum and gold.
M-type asteroids are rare but contain up to 10 times more metal than S-types.
Asteroids are located in numerous locations throughout the Sol System.
Kuiper Belt Asteroids: a circumstellar disc in the Sol system beyond the planets, extending from the orbit of Neptune (at 30 AU) to approximately 50 AU from Sol. It is similar to the asteroid belt, but it is far larger - 20 times as wide and 20 to 200 times as massive. Like the asteroid belt, it consists mainly of small bodies, or remnants from the Sol system's formation. Although many asteroids are composed primarily of rock and metal, most Kuiper belt objects are composed largely of frozen volatiles (termed "ices"), such as methane, ammonia, and water. Some of the Sol system's moons, such as Neptune's moon Triton, are thought to have originated in the region.
Short-period comets take less than 200 years to orbit the Sun that originate in the Kuiper Belt. Since their paths are deflected inward by the Gas Giants, most short-period comets orbit in the same region as the asteroid belt, located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Long-period comets require more than 200 years to orbit the Sun, generally taking many thousands to a few millions of years. They are usually only observed once. They come from the vast region in the outer reaches of our solar system known as the Oort Cloud.
The Oort Cloud is a huge sphere of ancient, icy objects that envelops the region of the planets. The Oort Cloud extends a thousand times farther than the Kuiper Belt. It is 50,000 AU in radius. Prior to the Protomolecule's discovery, Saturn's moon of Phoebe was thought to have originated from the Kuiper belt as well. There may be as many as 100 individual million objects in the Kuiper Belt.
Jupiter Trojens: The Jupiter trojans are a large group of asteroids that share the planet Jupiter's orbit around the Sun around one of the planet's stable Lagrange points: either L4, existing 60° ahead of the planet in its orbit, or L5, 60° behind. Jupiter trojans are distributed in two elongated, curved regions around these Lagrangian points with an average semi-major axis of about 5.2 AU.
The Asteroid Belt: The Asteroid Belt, often referred to as The Belt, also known as the main asteroid belt (to distinguish it from the farther out Kuiper belt), is a torus-shaped region in the Sol system, located roughly between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It consists of numerous smaller and bigger asteroids, and is part of the outer planets region of the system. The vast majority of asteroid mining happens in the Belt.
Mars Trojans: The Mars Trojans are asteroids that share the orbit of Mars. Mars Trojans are found around the two Lagrange points 60° ahead of and behind Mars. The group contains seven asteroids in a confirmed stable Mars orbit. The spectra of three Mars trojans indicates an olivine-rich composition. People from the Martian Trojans speak a specific dialect of the Belter Creole.
Near-Earth asteroids
Alinda asteroids: The Alinda asteroids are a dynamical group of asteroids with a semi-major axis of about 2.5 AU and an orbital eccentricity approximately between 0.4 and 0.65. These objects are held in this region by the 3:1 orbital resonance with Jupiter (2.502 AU), which results in their orbits being close to a 1:4 resonance with Earth (2.520 AU). An object in this resonance has its orbital eccentricity steadily increased by gravitational interactions with Jupiter until it eventually has a close encounter with an inner planet that breaks the resonance. Some Alindas have perihelia very close to Earth's orbit, resulting in a series of close encounters at almost exactly four-year intervals, due to the 1:4 near resonance. One consequence of this is that if an Alinda asteroid happens to be in an unfavorable position for viewing at the time of its close approach to Earth (for instance, at a small elongation from the Sun), then this situation can persist for decades. Another consequence is that some of these asteroids make repeated relatively close approaches to Earth, making them good objects for mining. By the year 2240, most of the Alinda asteroids have been fully mined for their resources.
Amor asteroids: The Amor asteroids are a group of near-Earth asteroids named after the archetype object 1221 Amor. The orbital perihelion of these objects is close to, but greater than, the orbital aphelion of Earth (i.e., the objects do not cross Earth's orbit), with most Amors crossing the orbit of Mars. Eros was an Amor asteroid before it crashed into Venus.
Apollo asteroids: The Apollo asteroids are a group of near-Earth asteroids. They are Earth-crossing asteroids that have an orbital semi-major axis greater than that of the Earth (a > 1 AU) but perihelion distances less than the Earth's aphelion distance (q < 1.017 AU). The number of known Apollo asteroids is 21,083, making the class the largest group of near-Earth objects. The closer their semi-major axis is to Earth's, the less eccentricity is needed for the orbits to cross. By 2240, most the Apollo Asteroids had been deemed as non-threats thanks to predicting their orbits and to orbiting anti-asteroid defense systems around the Earth's and Luna's orbits. The Apollo Asteroids are known for being either completely mined out of resources or having large space stations inplanted inside them. Of these space stations, the majority of them are for mining processing or recreational activities or both.
Aten Asteorids: The Aten asteroids are located between the orbits of Mercury and Earth. The Aten asteroids are a dynamical group of asteroids whose orbits bring them into proximity with Earth. By definition, Atens are Earth-crossing asteroids (semi-major axis < 1.0 AU and aphelion > 0.983 AU). The Aten asteroids spend most of their time sunward of Earth's orbit, crossing out for a third or a quarter of their time. They have been accessible since the first days of humanity’s expansion into space, and so they were some of the first to be mined. The mining of titanium, platinum and nickel-iron had made large fortunes, however the push out into the main belt and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn had left them behind. As mining technologies improved, ore that had been exhausted generations before was rich enough for the new techniques to wring out a little more.
Atira asteroids are asteroids whose orbits are entirely confined within Earth's orbit. Their orbit has an aphelion smaller than Earth's perihelion, which is 0.983 AU. Atira asteroids are by far the smallest group of near-Earth asteroids.
Prospecting ships are used to mine ice, mineral and metal ores from asteroids for commercial purposes. The ships that prospect and mine asteroids are varied and run the gamut from well-equipped corporate survey ships to barely functional rock hoppers. Larger ships have internal ore bays while smaller ships tow ore loads in mining nets.
Step 1: Secure a mining net around the asteroid and place explosive mining charges across and within the asteroid. Make sure the mining net is connected to a spacecraft.
Step 2: Blow charges to reduce asteroid to rubble and catch it in the mining net. Ensure those charges are placed correctly and that the mining net is secure, else the explosions will damage the net and cause leakage of the desired materials into space, if not destroy the net to uselessness. Once this is complete, the cracked asteroid pieces will conform to net shape and can be hauled to a processing station.
Towing an ore load requires keeping a constant tension on the tow cables attached to the mining nets.
Thrusters are used to rotate and re-orient the ship and cargo for deceleration burns, without changing momentum.
The ship fires thrusters to slow momentum of ship and cargo.
While most prospecting ships are unarmed, Belters have developed a tactic to defend themselves using their cargo. After re-orienting the ship and cargo as they would to decelerate, the ship instead disengages their mining net allowing the asteroid rubble in the net to continue on to strike their target.