Academician Ye Peijian, a well-known Chinese spacecraft General and information processing expert, said on May 8 that the exploitation of asteroid resources will surely be one of the future development directions of space. “As long as we do it, we can carry out demonstration projects within 10 years; It will take about 50 years to realize large-scale mining.” He said.
The reporter of Science and Technology Daily learned from the academic report on asteroid exploration held at the Fifth Academy of the company in China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation on that day that asteroids, especially near-Earth asteroids, are one of the most valuable space exploration targets in the near future. Huang Jiangchuan, the technical director of the office in the field of lunar and deep space exploration in the fifth Academy, believes that China should carry out a high starting point and landmark asteroid exploration mission during the 14th Five-Year Plan.
Ye Peijian said at the meeting that there are many possibilities for development by using the orbital characteristics and material characteristics of asteroid celestial bodies. For example, the rare metal content of some asteroids can reach several times of that of the earth, worth tens of trillion dollars; The whole asteroid can also be developed as a giant spacecraft. At present, the main plans include using it as a resource development platform and a interstellar navigation platform.
The recent plan of the resource development platform is to capture an asteroid, control it within the reach range, then carry out the exploitation of robot or manned resources, obtain the rare resources on the asteroid and return to the Earth. Or directly use the mineral resources of asteroids to carry out on-orbit construction, etc.
“From the perspective of the cohesion of future manned asteroid detection, extraction of asteroid resources to support subsequent deep space exploration missions, as well as the collision threat to the Earth after capture and the feasibility of dynamics, the asteroid capture mission implemented by our country in the future may catch the asteroid at 2 o’clock in the high orbit around the moon or the solar-terrestrial Lagrange.” Ye Peijian said.
The long-term assumption of this plan is to use asteroids as space transfer stations, provide basic materials for human beings to establish space facilities and interstellar navigation transfer systems, and carry out more far-reaching exploration tasks.
The interstellar navigation platform scheme will make use of the orbit of the asteroid. The idea is to let the probe land on the surface of the asteroid, or sleep or carry out detection, during which the asteroid is used as a ferry platform. When the asteroid reaches the appropriate position, the probe will fly to the Deep Space target again. This can reduce the propellant demand of the detector, reduce the size of the detector or expand the detection distance. In the future, human beings will also be able to build a closed large-scale ecological circulation system on asteroids, using the energy collection and supply of asteroids to maintain the operation of the system; Using the centrifugal force generated by the rotation of small celestial bodies to simulate the gravity environment of the earth, in order to meet the living requirements of astronauts and form space mobile homes one by one.
The vision is very beautiful, but there are many technical barriers between it and reality. Ye Peijian said that asteroid detection involves many key core technologies in “selection, detection, control and use. For example, when selecting an asteroid target, it involves parameter identification and analysis, scientific value evaluation, engineering feasibility analysis, etc.; Early detection of the target asteroid should solve the problem of long-time interstellar flight power supply and fuel supply, autonomous navigation of dark and weak targets in deep space, as well as the capture, landing and attachment of weak gravitational celestial bodies, surface motion and other issues; For the selected and reached asteroid targets, it is necessary to solve the problem of how to control the asteroid at close range, including eliminating the spin of the asteroid, shifting its orbit or transferring it to the target area.
When developing and utilizing asteroid resources, we must first overcome the in-situ resource utilization technology. Ye Peijian said that this is a technology for surveying and acquiring natural or abandoned resources of celestial bodies outside the Earth for maintaining products and services that can survive outside the Earth for a long time. Including the survey and exploration of the destination, the collection and pretreatment of the original resources, the processing and production process of converting the original resources into consumables such as propellant, energy, life insurance, etc, and factory and equipment support for in-situ resource utilization.
At the meeting, Yang Ji, the director of Zijinshan Observatory of Chinese Academy of Sciences, issued the bronze plaque and naming certificate of “ye peijianxing” to Ye Peijian. It is understood that the Zijinshan Observatory discovered the asteroid with the international number 456677 on September 11, 2007.
Academician Ye Peijian, the famous General and information processing expert of 1500
China spacecraft, said on May 8 that the exploitation of asteroid resources will surely be one of the future development directions of space. “As long as China does it, it will be able to carry out demonstration projects within 10 years; To achieve large-scale development