Asteroid Mining

http://911metallurgist.com/keep-mining/

Crushing
Grinding
Gravity Concentration
Froth Flotation
Leaching (Gold-Silver/Copper or Others) in Tanks or Heap
Electrowinning and Smelting
Thickening & Filtering / Tailings & Water Treatment
Laboratory & General Mineral Processing

These tiny moons of biars, are relatively close and well known. Data available on these tiny asteroid like moons indicates that they are most probably C1 or C2 carbonaceous chondrites. The regolith of Phobos and Deimos may be as homogenized as the regolith of Earth’s moon, with the precious metals dispersed as tiny grains. The precious platinum group metals, along with reduced iron and meteoritic nickel-iron particles, might be recovered from the regolith of Phobos or Deimos by magnetic or electrostatic separation. The resulting iron – precious-metal concentrate might be separated into a structural iron and a valuable precious metal residue by magnetic andlor chemical separation. Due to the extremely fine micron and submicron sizes of these precious metal alloy grains, liberation and concentration may prove difficult.

Metallic Asteroids

Of the metallic asteroids, the class IV-B nickel-rich ataxite (taenite) and those class 11-A hexahedrites (kamacite) irons with more than 15 ppm iridium have the highest precious metals content. Base precious metals are high unit value commodities, but only about 12 X of the metallic asteroids can be expected to contain such significant amounts.

Earth-Approaching Asteroids

The earth-approaching asteroids, otherwise horn as the Apollo-Amor-Aten bodies, are a group of tiny near-earth asteroids, approximately fifty are shown. Most of the orbits of the hown earth-approaching asteroids (except for some of the Amers) in relation to the orbits of Jupiter and the inner planets. Heavy lines indicate some of these earth-approaching asteroids which have orbits with low eccentricities andlor low inclinations to the earth’s orbit. The earth-approaching asteroids are known bodies from which promising exploration targets might be selected, because their orbits allow interception from low-earth orbit with the least change in relative velocity. Many different kinds of bodies appear to be represented among the earth-approaching asteroids. They are predominantly S-type with some C-type asteroids. bong the Earth-approaching asteroids, to date, metallic bodies are notably absent.

Earth-Crossing-Asteroids

Aten and Apollo asteroids are those with orbits that have perihelions of less than 1.013 Au. They often have high eccentricities and inclinations which greatly increase the delta-V necessary to reach than from earth orbit.

Aten Asteroids

These asteroids have orbits with semimajor axes less than 1.013 AU. Atens come near the earth’s orbit and do not cross the orbit of Mars.

Economically valuable and strategically important platinum-group metals are available in the Earth Approaching asteroids. To visit some of these asteroids will require less energy for a round trip from low earth orbit than for a round trip to the surface of the Moon. The quantity of platinum-group metals available in the Aten, Apollo and Amor asteroids far exceeds all known terrestrial reserves of these metals. An intensified telescopic search for these bodies should be started in order to increase the quantity and quality of available exploration and exploitation targets.

Asteroid Mining

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