Reconstituting Asteroids into Mechanical Automata

Many interesting ideas have been conceived for building space-based infrastructure in cislunar space. From O'Neill's space colonies, to solar power satellite farms, and even prospecting retrieved near earth asteroids. In all the scenarios, one thing remained fixed - the need for space resources at the outpost. To satisfy this need, O'Neill suggested an electromagnetic railgun to deliver resources from the lunar surface, while NASA's Asteroid Redirect Mission called for a solar electric tug to deliver asteroid materials from interplanetary space. At Made In Space, we propose an entirely new concept. One which is scalable, cost effective, and ensures that the abundant material wealth of the inner solar system becomes readily available to humankind in a nearly automated fashion. We propose the RAMA architecture, which turns asteroids into self-contained spacecraft capable of moving themselves back to cislunar space. The RAMA architecture is just as capable of transporting conventional sized asteroids on the 10m length scale as transporting asteroids 100m or larger, making it the most versatile asteroid retrieval architecture in terms of retrieved-mass capability. This report describes the results of the Phase I study funded by the NASA NIAC program for Made In Space to establish the concept feasibility of using space manufacturing to convert asteroids into autonomous, mechanical spacecraft. Project RAMA, Reconstituting Asteroids into Mechanical Automata, is designed to leverage the future advances of additive manufacturing (AM), in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) and in-situ manufacturing (ISM) to realize enormous efficiencies in repeated asteroid redirect missions. A team of engineers at Made In Space performed the study work with consultation from the asteroid mining industry, academia, and NASA. Previous studies for asteroid retrieval have been constrained to studying only asteroids that are both large enough to be discovered, and small enough to be captured and transported using Earth-launched propulsion technology. Project RAMA is not forced into this constraint. The mission concept studied involved transporting a much larger ~50m asteroid to cislunar space. Demonstration of transport of a 50m-class asteroid has several groundbreaking advantages. First, the returned material is of an industrial, rather than just scientific, quantity (>10,000 tonnes vs ~10s of tonnes). Second, the useless material in the asteroid is gathered and expended as part of the asteroid's propulsion system, allowing the returned asteroid to be considerably purer than a conventional asteroid retrieval mission. Third, the infrastructure used to convert and return the asteroid is reusable, and capable of continually returning asteroids to cislunar space. The RAMA architecture, as described in this report, was shown to be cross cutting through the NASA technology roadmap as well as the future goals of the greater aerospace industry. During the course of the study it was found that the RAMA technology path aligns with over twelve NASA roadmap missions across seven NASA technology areas, and has the opportunity to substantially improve the affordability and scalability of both the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate (HEOMD) and the Science Mission Directorate (SMD) stated goals. The approach to studying this concept started with the development of Rock Finder, a rapid optimization tool for identifying suitable asteroids for utilization. In parallel to the Rock Finder development, a trade study was performed on various ISRU and ISM technologies. A technology roadmap was created to identify suitable technologies for turning asteroids into spacecraft. Rock Finder was then used to identify a single S-type asteroid, and a mission assessment was performed for a specific set of technologies, showing the feasibility of performing a RAMA style mission with the asteroid. The end results suggest that the RAMA architecture is a feasible way to automate a self-perpetuating suite of asteroid exploration, discovery, and utilization missions within a twenty to thirty year time horizon, demonstrating a maturation of the technology from TRL 1 to TRL 2.