Mission to the planet 10 billion billion USD

This is a large, metal-rich asteroid with a staggering estimated monetary value of $100 trillion ($10 trillion).

Years to reach

According to scientists, 16 Psyche is truly a gold mine, filled with rare elements needed for cars and electronics, such as platinum and palladium. To explore and perhaps colonize space, we will need extraterrestrial resources.

Companies like AstroForge and TransAstra are considering building mines on asteroids like Psyche. However, the question many people ask is: Is humanity any closer to exploiting them and obtaining that cosmic treasure?

Sharing about this issue, Mr. Philip Metzger – planetary physicist at the University of Central Florida (USA) said that in terms of technology, we are quite close.

The only difference between mining on asteroids versus on Earth is the need for equipment that can withstand low-gravity, high-radiation conditions.

The device also needs to be able to operate autonomously. Specifically, it can take 20 minutes or more for a guided radio wave to reach an asteroid, especially if it is on the other side of the Sun.

All of that technology has been developed and tested in the lab, Mr. Metzger said, but is not quite ready for deployment. On NASA’s Technology Readiness scale, which ranges from 1 – 9, current space mining equipment ranges from 3 – 5.

“The technologies need to be advanced to about 6-7 before we are ready to start building the flight mission. What is lacking now is funding. If all that money comes in now, we could see small-scale asteroid mining in five years,” Mr. Metzger shared.

Meanwhile, any advances in asteroid mining will likely come from industry, said Kevin Cannon, assistant professor of geology and geological engineering at the Colorado School of Mines’ Space Resources Program. private.

However, there is at least one potential obstacle. They are: Explain to investors why we should mine asteroids in the first place. Mr. Cannon said it was a fair question. According to this expert, returning materials to Earth is “economically unreliable”.

Doing so would be extremely expensive. When in reality, platinum group metals are actually falling in price. But, he added, asteroids could be an important source of raw materials for development in space.

“So, for example, if we extract water from a water-rich asteroid, we can split it into hydrogen and oxygen. Then use it as rocket propellant to refuel spacecraft,” Mr. Cannon said.

Meanwhile, metals mined from asteroids can be turned into large structures in space. That raises another question: Why not just mine the Moon? All the materials we want to mine from asteroids also exist there, albeit in lower concentrations. Of course these asteroids are much closer.

“Even the near-Earth asteroids that people talk about, if you take into account how long it takes for the orbits between the asteroid and the Earth to align and you need to go back,” Mr. Cannon said. It takes hundreds of days.” Specifically, for the asteroid Psyche – which is worth 10 billion billion USD, it will take many years for humans to reach it. In particular, the first approach is estimated to take place in 2029.

Asteroid Psyche.

One of the largest asteroids

Even if we’re not ready to mine asteroids, many scientists are still interested in exploring these space rocks.

Less than a month before the Psyche mission launched, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft returned from its mission to asteroid Bennu, carrying samples.

In 2020, Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft returned with samples from the asteroid Ryugu, before taking off to explore two other asteroids, 2001 CC21 and 1998 KY26. In October this year, the European Space Agency will launch a mission to the asteroid Hera.

None of these missions have an explicit focus on mining. The research goals of both OSIRIS-REx and Hayabusa2 include developing a better understanding of the geology and chemistry of ancient Earth, or researching planetary defense technology.

“There is no magical technology that we have to invent to mine asteroids. We have this technology. The problem is whether you have the will to do it and invest the capital to do it,” Mr. Cannon said.

First discovered in 1852 by Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis, 16 Psyche is a metal-rich asteroid located in the asteroid belt at a maximum distance of 600 million km from Earth. .

About 279 kilometers across at its widest point, 16 Psyche is potato-shaped and is one of the largest known asteroids in the Solar System.

Scientists are interested in 16 Psyche because it shows signs of being a failed planet. Made up of an exposed iron core and metallic outer layers, this asteroid could have once become the core of a planet as large as Mars. However, violent collisions with other large objects during the formation of the Solar System prevented it from doing so.

Other planetesimals, or small bodies that form a planet’s core, are thought to contain large amounts of iron oxide, but these are not present in 16 Psyche’s core. This makes astronomers think that this mysterious asteroid could suggest a different type of planet formation mechanism than the one that creates Earth.

The roughly truck-sized Psyche spacecraft includes solar arrays, a magnetometer, a gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer, and a multispectral imager to study asteroids. It will move itself through space using solar electric propulsion, using converted sunlight to accelerate charged xenon atoms and blast them from one of its four thrusters.