(MENAFN- EIN Presswire)
AMi Cargo spaceship heading to an asteroid for mining operations.
The Asteroid Mining Program (AMi) is a ten-year program that aims to unlock one of the largest sources of wealth in history, through profitable asteroid mining.
ARCA COSMOBASE, ROMANIA, July 22, 2022 /EINPresswire.com / -- The Asteroid Mining Program (AMi) is a ten-year program carried out by ARCA Space that aims to unlock one of the largest sources of wealth in history, through profitable asteroid mining.
We are committed to launch the first asteroid mining mission in 2027 targeting 1,000 kg of platinum worth around $34 million. However, the Recovery Capsule return capacity is up to 2,500 kg worth of $85 million. Until 2031 we plan to return to Earth $1 billion worth of ore, and spend $100 million to tackle Earth's problems, like poverty, health, education, global warming, etc.
Some asteroids are flying close to Earth and they could provide vast quantities of minerals. Typical precious metals could include gold, platinum, rhodium, iridium, silver, osmium, palladium, and tungsten.
ARCA Space develops the EcoRocket Heavy launcher and the AMi Cargo spaceship to allow this endeavour. EcoRocket Heavy is a reusable, sea-launched, three stages, ecological, cost-effective rocket, able to launch 24 tons to orbit, that will be used by ARCA to launch the asteroid mining vehicles.
EcoRocket Heavy uses a water-based propellant for the first two stages and is made of clusters of mass-produced Propulsion Modules. For this reason, EcoRocket Heavy has an unusual configuration as it is wider than taller.
With a total launch mass, including the payload, of 5,680 tons, and 12,600 tons-force, EcoRocket Heavy is the heaviest and has the highest thrust at start compared to any other vehicle ever built. It also promises the lowest cost/kg ever recorded, at $208/kg.
The AMi Cargo is a composite materials, 20 metric tons vehicle that will be used for reconnaissance missions to identify potential mining targets and for actual asteroid mining operations.
Considering an interception point at 7 million km distance from Earth, a typical AMi mission would last 186 days.
Our preliminary approach to the actual mining is as follows: the mining equipment is housed inside the AMi Cargo's Recoverable Capsule and it's deployed once the capsule is firmly attached to the asteroid.
A drill will be deployed from the top of the capsule and it will scrap the surface. There will be a diameter of 4 m between the legs and the available diameter for digging will be 3 m for a depth up to 6 m. This means that a maximum of 42.4 m3 of excavated material will be available for processing.
Assuming an average density of 5,320 kg/m3 for M type asteroids, there will be 225.6 tons of material available for processing. Assuming a grade of 100 g of platinum/ton of material, there will be 22.6 kg of available platinum to grab/one excavation.
The material is scanned and filtered, separating the precious metals from the sterile. The entire mining operation is done with the energy stored inside the batteries from the service module, totalling 10MW.
The vehicle will return to Earth and splashdown in the ocean from where it will be recovered by a ship or helicopter.
It is our believe that asteroid mining is going to happen on an extremely low budget, or not going to happen at all in the foreseeable future.
The total amount needed for the EcoRocket Heavy fabrication is $23 million.
The launch cost for the reusable EcoRocket Heavy is $5 million.
The cost of an asteroid mining mission will reach $5.8 million.
We estimate that $100 million will be required between 2022 to 2027, to start the mining operations.
In order to raise this amount, in August 2022 we will release the AMi Exploration Crypto.
The utility for the ARCA token is linked to the fact that the token owners could use the tokens to purchase the ore with priority. The purchase could be also performed with 20% from the sale cost covered with the AMi Token.
More details available in the White Paper .
Dumitru Popescu
ARCA Space
+40 721 146 509
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