APIS (Asteroid Provided In-Situ Supplies): 100MT Of Water from a Single Falcon 9 (APIS)

The vision of using asteroids as the stepping stones to the solar system has been shared by many for over a century beginning with Konstantin Tsiolkovsky first postulating the idea in 1903. Other space technology pioneers who considered practical applications of asteroid resources include Robert Goddard in 1918 and Gerard K. O'Neill in the 1970s. In the 1990s the well regarded planetary scientist John Lewis proposed asteroids as the source of in-space propellant for space operations. More recently, privately backed startup companies have worked on small prospecting spacecraft with an eye toward someday returning precious metals to the Earth. To move beyond being just a vision, the study of asteroid resource utilization needs a clear and technically rigorous plan for how to cost effectively extract and use asteroid resources as an economically viable approach to supporting space operations. This Phase I NIAC project provides that needed plan. The ApisTM architecture is a clear and technically viable way to build an in-space transportation network that can reduce the cost of space operations so NASA can accomplish its vision of human exploration of space within a politically realistic budget. To do this, the Apis architecture comprises several elements including the Honey BeeTM asteroid mining vehicle, the Worker BeeTM reusable deep space tug, and the HiveTM consumables depot in lunar distant retrograde orbit (LDRO). Together, these systems form a cost-effective reusable cis-lunar transportation network supplied by asteroid resources to eliminate the need for launching large quantities of consumables to support human exploration of deep space beyond LEO. Lightweight, thin film solar concentrators, structures, and optical systems are a key features of all elements of the Apis architecture which relies on raw solar thermal power in place of electrical power for all materials processing and propulsion functions. The work described in this report has proven the feasibility of three critical technologies: Optical MiningTM; the OmnivoreTM solar thermal engine; and technical means to determine the quantity and accessibility of asteroid resources that support cis-lunar operations. In addition we have performed conceptual level vehicle design and performance analysis showing the viability of the ApisTM approach. Optical MiningTM is a breakthrough method of asteroid ISRU which avoids the need for costly and complex electric power systems or intricate and massive robotic digging equipment. Instead, in Optical MiningTM asteroid material is loosely encapsulated in tough, thinfilm bags with ports that permit the introduction of telescopic optics to deliver highly concentrated solar thermal power to the surface of the asteroid. We have experimentally demonstrated that such radiation can excavate rock and breakup asteroid material though spalling. The passive storage of the resulting evolved gases as ice in thin film bags is enabled through the use of second surface mirror coatings on thin film enclosures. The OmnivoreTM solar thermal rocket is a breakthrough propulsion technology invented under this Phase I NIAC effort. Not just a solar thermal rocket, the OmnivoreTM thruster is a fundamentally new propulsion capability that will be able to use raw, unprocessed, dirty, volatile products from the Optical MiningTM process directly as propellant to deliver approximately 100 times the thrust of a correspondingly massive solar electric propulsion system but without the need for expensive propellant to be launched into space from the Earth.