Atmospheric Mining in the Outer Solar System: In-Situ Resource Utilization, Factories, and Moon Mining Parametric Analyses

Atmospheric mining in the outer solar system (AMOSS) has been investigated as a means of fuel production for high energy propulsion and power. Fusion fuels such as Helium 3 (3He) and deuterium can be wrested from the atmospheres of Uranus and Neptune and either returned to Earth or used in-situ for energy production. Helium 3 and deuterium were the primary gases of interest with hydrogen being the primary propellant for nuclear thermal solid core and gas core rocket-based atmospheric flight. A series of analyses were undertaken to investigate resource capturing aspects of atmospheric mining in the outer solar system. This included the gas capturing rate, storage options, and different methods of direct use of the captured gases. While capturing 3He, large amounts of hydrogen and 4He are produced. With these two additional gases, the potential for fueling small and large fleets of additional exploration and exploitation vehicles exists. Analyses of orbital transfer vehicles (OTVs), landers, and in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) mining factories are included. Preliminary observations are presented on near-optimal selections of moon base orbital locations, OTV power levels, and OTV and lander rendezvous points. Aerospacecraft with closed cycle gas core propulsion are used to capture the 3He and deuterium from the outer planet atmospheres. Water ice on the outer planet moons has been identified as critical resources for refueling the moon landers and the nuclear electric propulsion (NEP) OTVs. Parametric analyses of the number of mining machines and their associated issues are addressed. The parametric analyses include the fraction of water ice in the regolith, the machines’ payload mass, the truck machine to hold the payload, and the mass of the rocket hoppers needed for transportation. The number of landers for the initial emplacement of the outer planet moon processing factories is also analyzed.