Asteroid mining is coming close to reality. If you are on board with it, you've got to keep yourself ready. A new report suggested a particular database to explore for this activity.
Asteroid Mining Using ECOCEL Database
Mining asteroid is steadily but gradually becoming a reality. Both governmental organizations and numerous startups are participating. However, many resources are still lacking that could help this developing sector get off the ground. A list of prospective candidate asteroids to visit would be especially helpful. Although the information has long been spread over many locations, no one has consolidated it into a single, searchable database.
ISAE-SUPAERO, France's top aeronautical engineering school, and a French team under the direction of Irina Kovalenko created the Exploitation des Ressources des Corps Celestes (ECOCEL) database. It combines two of the most important asteroids' characteristics that mining firms would find interesting: how simple it is to reach them and what materials they comprise, Phys.org reported.
There have been numerous instances where it has been determined how simple it is to reach an asteroid. In reality, the ECOCEL team obtained information straight from the Small-Body Database at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This freely accessible database keeps track of almost 25,000 Near Earth Objects, the asteroids that a first asteroid mining mission is most likely to explore.
The Small-Body Database determines the "delta-V," or change in velocity, required to reach the asteroid and determine how to get there. Think of delta-v as the energy needed to get to an object, which is crucial for asteroid miners' economic calculations. An asteroid can be chosen using the database tool's custom-created interface based on reducing the delta-v for a specific launch window.
What Is ECOCEL Database?
The ECOCEL database is a web-based tool created by ISAE-SUPAERO to help choose potential asteroids for future space mining missions. There are 326 NEAs in the database, according to Science Direct.
The database contains two pieces of information for each object: (i) one-way and round-trip rendezvous mission chances calculated for the launch window of 2025-2050; and (ii) an estimated composition deduced from spectral classification and meteorite analogs.
The web tool allows for the specification of mission limitations while searching for appropriate target asteroids. The ECOCEL program also offers a visual representation of compositional information for the whole sample of asteroids.
ECOCEL uses a tool called the Sun Earth Moon dynamics Python package to go beyond the available basic flight and composition data. The ECOCEL team uses this software library, which employs orbital mechanics data to determine the location of a given object in the system to provide computations for both one-way and round-trip flights. Unlike most comparable databases, it offers a potential launch window between 2020 and 2050.
Computing a parking orbit and setting delta-v restrictions are two more features. Compared to other databases that have been created, this one is much better suited to the requirements of private and public asteroid mining initiatives. The journal Planetary and Space Science has also published related findings.
Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that the database at ecocel-database.com is accessible at the time of writing. It was previously utilized in other experiments, and a paper and presentation outlining its development were published in March.
It is unknown when it will be up again. We are hopeful that this potentially valuable internet-based tool will resurface and assist engineers and businesspeople looking to start their journey to asteroid mining!
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