How many assay probes to find one ore-bearing asteroid?

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How many assay probes to find one ore-bearing asteroid?

Elvis, Martin / Esty, Thomas

Abstract The number of ore-bearing asteroids could well be small and remote telescopic techniques are inadequate to identify such asteroids confidently. Finding an asteroid that can be profitably mined requires proximate observations from assay probes. Here we use a simple statistical approach to estimate the number of assay probes, N assay, needed to find at least one ore-bearing asteroid at a high confidence (90%, 95%, and 99%). We present results for a wide range of values of the probability of an asteroid being rich in the resource of interest, P rich. We find that N assay depends strongly on P rich, for likely values of P rich (<0.5). For a plausible value of P rich~0.1 then to obtain 90% confidence that at least one ore-bearing asteroid is found, N assay=22, and for 99% confidence N assay=44. A factor two increase in P rich roughly halves N assay, while for P rich~0.5, N assay (90%)=4. Hence any improvement in asteroid characterization prior to sending probes to its proximity would be an effective way to cost-effectively search for valuable resources among the asteroids. Some possibilities for doing so are briefly discussed.

Highlights • If 1/10 asteroids are ore-bearing two dozen must be probed to find 1 at 90% confidence. • Even if 1/2 are ore-bearing four probes are needed, or 11 at 99% confidence. • This pushes down the allowed cost/probe. • Improving bulk telescopic characterization rapidly reduces the number of probes.