Asteroid belt database project

[Phenix]

As for Asteroid exploration and mining, an Asteroid database would be very helpfull for the future missions to target in order of priority the resources to be collected.

[joertexas]

As for Asteroid exploration and mining, an Asteroid database would be very helpfull for the future missions to target in order of priority the resources to be collected.

There are information databases galore on NEOs and other asteroids. I don't know of an official list of target asteroids for mining missions. There have been several asteroid exploration missions flown by NASA and JAXA, with some promising results.

I've made my own list of likely suspects, based on the delta vee required to reach them, and their estimated size. I can post it if anyone's interested.

JR

[joertexas]

As for Asteroid exploration and mining, an Asteroid database would be very helpfull for the future missions to target in order of priority the resources to be collected.

There are information databases galore on NEOs and other asteroids. I don't know of an official list of target asteroids for mining missions. There have been several asteroid exploration missions flown by NASA and JAXA, with some promising results.

I've made my own list of likely suspects, based on the delta vee required to reach them, and their estimated size. I can post it if anyone's interested.

JR

[Phenix]

Yes, please go ahead and post it. I am sure that the community is interested.
Many thanks :)

[joertexas]

Yes, please go ahead and post it. I am sure that the community is interested.
Many thanks :)

Here's my list, in order of increasing Delta Vee required to reach them:

1998 KY26
2003 SM84
2005 YA37
2005 RK3
2009 DC12
2001 US16
2002 NV16
2003 EZ16
1993 BX3
2003 GA
1998 KG3
2006 CL9

All of these asteroids require between 4.2 and 4.52 km/s to reach from LEO, and they are all 100m or larger, with the exception of the first two on the list. Their return Delta Vee to lunar orbit is 0.7 to 0.75 km/s. This is within reach using the chemical burning engines we have right now. Missions with higher energy requirements will require staging or better engines.

JR

[Rhyshaelkan]

These would be from the Apollo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apollo_asteroids) group of NEOs?

[joertexas]

These would be from the Apollo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apollo_asteroids) group of NEOs?

I believe so, yes. Their selling points are the low Delta Vee and being large enough to make worthwhile destinations.

JR

[Rhyshaelkan]

I had to look up Δv to make sure I knew what was going on. I understand how Δv works now. No matter what the distance, since Δv does not include constant acceleration, Δv is the acceleration and deceleration to achieve a point around a given object in space.

I say this because I was going to ask whether these ΔVs took into account their relation to the Earth as regards to close orbit or distance orbit. The only thing that would change is the time it takes to get there and back, not the thrust involved.

Obviously then when it comes time for PERMANENT, or another organization, to select a first target they will have to cross-reference; Δv, materials to be returned to Earth(most bang for your buck), and the time to get there and back. Faster return of highly prized elements will allow for more missions over time. Which will attract more investors as word gets out of dividends being paid.

The materials should be prime interest now. As we, PERMANENT, moves closer to a launch date. Then we can see which of a given number of asteroids would give us the best ROI.

I hope to win the lotto, or do well enough in my investments, in the mean time so that I can be a greater partner of the spoils :D. Though I would probably re-invest most of it. I despise avarice. My goals are more lofty and more simple. I want mankind to exodus.

[Sam Fraser]

Yes, there is already a wealth of data out there. There's a surprising amount of work being done. Once we have a short list, what's the next step? Can accurate spectroscopic analysis be done from ground to determine if these NEOs have anything useful? Do or can current ground-based surveys allow for this kind of data in their observations?

[Phenix]

Salut Sam :)
I was asking myself the same question and can we also be sure and how to gather extremely accurate information as well. It is primordial to insert into the database extermely precise information per asteroid on the short list.

[joertexas]

Yes, there is already a wealth of data out there. There's a surprising amount of work being done. Once we have a short list, what's the next step? Can accurate spectroscopic analysis be done from ground to determine if these NEOs have anything useful? Do or can current ground-based surveys allow for this kind of data in their observations?

I've been looking for data on my suspects list, and I've come up empty so far. Other than orbit data, there isn't much published on these particular asteroids. Could we commission someone to analyze the target asteroids for us?

JR

[Sam Fraser]

Hi, JR, I assume you've been here:

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/orbits/

It's not a searchable database, although you can enter names of individual NEOs and it displays a cool zoomable orbit diagram in 3D plus other data.

Why not send an e-mail to Ron Baalke at JPL to seee if such a database exists where you can search according to certain parameters like delta V?

r o n AT j p l . n a s a . g o v

Good luck and good night. :cool:

[joertexas]

Hi, JR, I assume you've been here:

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/orbits/

It's not a searchable database, although you can enter names of individual NEOs and it displays a cool zoomable orbit diagram in 3D plus other data.

Why not send an e-mail to Ron Baalke at JPL to see if such a database exists where you can search according to certain parameters like delta V?

r o n AT j p l . n a s a . g o v

Good luck and good night. :cool:

I've been to that site, and I used their database in part to select my targets. But, they have little hard data about composition and asteroid type.

JR

[Sam Fraser]

If you have time, JR, I suggest firing off an e-mail to Ron Baalke as noted above. Mark's been in contact with him once or twice long ago and he is most helpful if you show respect for his limited time, are polite and to the point, but not demanding. (It might grease the wheels if you namedropped Mark's name and PERMANENT. :D ) Any database or spreadsheets he could provide or recommend could be uploaded to GoogleDocs if it's public domain and we could then start plugging in any missing crucial data ourselves. I use GoogleDocs in my business all the time, which multiple staff can edit and update the same file simultaneously. For example, we have a work log I originally designed in Excel and then uploaded. Everyone updates their status whenever they start or finish a task and I can see at a glance who's done or doing what. Great for freelance staff who aren't in the same office or city, never mind country or hemisphere like it would be with PERMANENT volunteers! Our expanded Excel database can be downloaded at any time and exported in any number of formats to an online PERMANENT NEO database of some kind later on.

[joertexas]

If you have time, JR, I suggest firing off an e-mail to Ron Baalke as noted above. Mark's been in contact with him once or twice long ago and he is most helpful if you show respect for his limited time, are polite and to the point, but not demanding. (It might grease the wheels if you namedropped Mark's name and PERMANENT. :D ) Any database or spreadsheets he could provide or recommend could be uploaded to GoogleDocs if it's public domain and we could then start plugging in any missing crucial data ourselves. I use GoogleDocs in my business all the time, which multiple staff can edit and update the same file simultaneously. For example, we have a work log I originally designed in Excel and then uploaded. Everyone updates their status whenever they start or finish a task and I can see at a glance who's done or doing what. Great for freelance staff who aren't in the same office or city, never mind country or hemisphere like it would be with PERMANENT volunteers! Our expanded Excel database can be downloaded at any time and exported in any number of formats to an online PERMANENT NEO database of some kind later on.

I wonder if they have the capability to calculate launch windows for each of the target asteroids? I think I will ask..

JR

[Phenix]

I did try help JR to find a tool that would be featured on trajectory calculation and other beneficial nuts and bolts of JR's mutli probes project.

The best fitted tool that I did find so far is STK / Astrogator. Unfortunately this tool suite is subimmtted to exports laws in the US and cannot be installed or shared internationaly.

In the Urgency of JR's carrier multi probe's project, could the community give us feedbacks on any existing opensource software like STK / Astrogator ?

With PERMANENT's discretion and approval on this project to move on, the project datas should be shared on a PERMANENT's server.

In advance, thanks a lot in helping us !

[Sam Fraser]

Thanks for taking charge of this and doing so much research, Phenix. The asteroid database is almost like the foundation that we need to build everything else on. Hopefully, we can get a few suggestions from those "in the know".

[joertexas]

I did try help JR to find a tool that would be featured on trajectory calculation and other beneficial nuts and bolts of JR's mutli probes project.

The best fitted tool that I did find so far is STK / Astrogator. Unfortunately this tool suite is subimmtted to exports laws in the US and cannot be installed or shared internationaly.

In the Urgency of JR's carrier multi probe's project, could the community give us feedbacks on any existing opensource software like STK / Astrogator ?

With PERMANENT's discretion and approval on this project to move on, the project datas should be shared on a PERMANENT's server.

In advance, thanks a lot in helping us !

I'll be glad to post my spreadsheets, but they are likely to change - considerably.

JR

[Strobelix]

Hi folks,

anything new on that effords? I might help on that since I am a programmer ;)

If you have some new information on that or new ideas please give me call and I might come up with something in the near future.

[Phenix]

Hi Strobelix,
That's good to see you are interested on that project.

I did search for some good open source based project that would help to shape up a graphical 3D system "Asteroid belt database project".

GMAT at http://sourceforge.net/projects/gmat/ with its trajectories analysis engine could be the shortlisted one along with stellarium at http://www.stellarium.org/ for its rendering, zoomable features and heliocentric ephemerides engine. All datas items would be stored in a MySQL database as backends.

With a combination of the above engines and features as the frontends a user may be able to zoom in an selected asteroid object with all details items describing the asteroid. Passing over an item content description with a mouse pointer would show up in colored mode the precise 3D exploded sections of the asteroid.

When Joe's probes will report back the detailed information of target asteroids, we would be able fill up all the details for the exploded sections and sketch up the mining missions with the appropriate equipment being defined by RaresH.

Again, from my perception, I did only analyse what kind of existing software could be used for such project and prepare the launch path.

What would you like to do ? :)

[Strobelix]

Hi Phenix,

good that there is some info about what is out there already, good job. I think I will take a look at the software first.

Possibly it would be usefull to just contribute to the open source project and let's see if there is any chance to combine those two in an easy way.

Further more one has to think about what additional attributes we might need. I think some customized queries might be good for us in general to be able to optimize the search for suitable roids to probe.

If I remember right JPL does offer a telnet interface and an email interface. Of course a web-service interface would be the easiest way to keep our data up to date, regarding to the information they have.

As I said I will take a look at the software mentioned and I might propose some additional info we could merge with the JPL data or other trustable resources.

I migh come up with some more info within the next week or so.

[Phenix]

That's a real plan, excellent :D

[Strobelix]

Well I took a look at the documentation on those two applications.

1) gmat is a mission design tool and is written in c++. it's open source and seems to be maintained still, even if the last entries I saw on their wiki are from last year.

2) stellarium on the other hand is an application to view astronomic objects. It's also written in c++ and open source as well.

Regarding to both applications I have to state that's probably not really what we need in the first place. (2) Might be usefull for mission szenario presentation in order to convince people to invest on the project.

But first I would suggest to get some basic data, for the community to do search and add additional information. I have a database and a simple web client in mind to do the job.

The basic data would come from JPL if they agree and possibly from other sources from within the NEO projects.

Additional data would be added by our community or any other trustable source.

Our basic data and, let's say the JPL data, would have to be synchronized. I would assume in something like a batch job. Again they would have to agree on that. This way we would always have accurate data.

I will do some reasearch and design on that. Once I did solve the data synchronization thing I migh come up with a simple web application on my server to be tested for input on how to further develop it.

In case this is used by the community we might then think about how we can integrate this enhanced data into eiter gmat, stellarium or any other useful application via web service techonlogy.

[Phenix]

Thanks Strobelix,

You are on the right track on focusing on the database trustabilty and the reliable source to feed it.

Do you plan as well to use certifcates along to sych with JPL through the batch jobs you've suggested ?

Altough, I am curious on what kind of Web interface you will be using and expose to users for querying along with trusted web services if that is your choice. I'd bet that users are voting for a 'friendly' interface.

[Strobelix]

Well at the moment I didn't do much research on the details. Not sure if certificates are realy needed.

If jpl hasn't got any way how to query their data in kind of batch job one could still use http and parse the pages. That's some effort but duable. Robots do work like this.

About the interface: It will be a web interface and of course it should be user friendly else it wont be used. About how to guarantee that the data is trustable I didn't think a lot yet. For sure one would need user registration and verification (that will be https). For realy vital data we could use a process where one edits the data and someone else has to verify and comfirm it. That might do the job and avoid to much not accurate data or even totaly wrong values.

However, first thing is to setup a database and get the base data into that. After that I have to design and implement the data synchronization with JPL and/or other trustable sources.

[Phenix]

Excellent, thanks a lot Strobelix to be moving forward ;)

[Phenix]

Strobelix,

I think I found a free friendly tool for Space trajectories analysis. I have tested it and I find it really nice and much simplier to understand than GMAT.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/sta/files/

In addition to stellarium or the like, I still believe that interfacing such tool as STA with the asteroids database would be extremely usefull for designing mission scenarios espacially for Joe, AeroSpike and other members.

Thanks a lot :)

[Phenix]

Joe, AeroSpike,

Please test the STA tool and share your impression.

Thanks,

[Strobelix]

I took a first look and it seems to be considerable although the documentation is not great at all. However, I'm still working on the basics how to collect the astro data and be sure it's accurate. I do have some progress, but unfortunately the most of the effort goes into parsing files and merging data for now.

But from my point of view it is essential to have a relayable data source with all the information available merged into one data model, which then is semiatuomatically updated as new information is available.

Once I am done with that basic stuff (in about 2 weeks or so) I will ask you guys on some specific things. Since I am not a physisist I might need some help on the trajectories stuff and additionally I need some criterias one would drop in into the system to find the best target for a given time, based on all information present in the system.

Please don't bombard me with details, but give me as much information, so I will understand the point and get the big picture on what is needed. Thanks in advance!

[Strobelix]

I saw this video on yutube and took a short look the mentioned software.

Indeed I liked it due to the existing addons and the possiblity to add your own stuff as well, even addon DLL programming.

Please take a look:
http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-1246319804290931754&hl=de&fs=true style=width:400px;height:326px allowFullScreen=true allowScriptAccess=always type=application/x-shockwave-flash

for the video and

http://www.orbitersim.com/

for the simulation software.

[joertexas]

I took a first look and it seems to be considerable although the documentation is not great at all. However, I'm still working on the basics how to collect the astro data and be sure it's accurate. I do have some progress, but unfortunately the most of the effort goes into parsing files and merging data for now.

But from my point of view it is essential to have a relayable data source with all the information available merged into one data model, which then is semiatuomatically updated as new information is available.

Once I am done with that basic stuff (in about 2 weeks or so) I will ask you guys on some specific things. Since I am not a physisist I might need some help on the trajectories stuff and additionally I need some criterias one would drop in into the system to find the best target for a given time, based on all information present in the system.

Please don't bombard me with details, but give me as much information, so I will understand the point and get the big picture on what is needed. Thanks in advance!

What I'm looking for are, at bottom, launch windows. Those are the times when the asteroid may be intercepted with the least amount of delta vee. That time may or may not coincide with times of closest approach to Earth.

The group of asteroids I'd like to target first have been selected from a list of closest asteroids put together by, I think, JPL. Those are the Dirty Dozen I've posted elsewhere on this site.

JR

[Strobelix]

There is something I came accross when doing some online research:
ftp://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/pub/naif/toolkit_docs/Tutorials/pdf/packages/SPICE_Tutorials_Merged.pdf

I didn't read all the details yet, but the conceptual overview looks good. And the most important is, that the data seems to be scientificly accurate.

However I need to do more readings on that. Additionally I am not sure yet if it will be easy to retreive the data either on demand or periodically. I did browse the different pages on their home page and I think to get and transform data is doable. Based on that data one can do whatever one likes regarding to misson planning.

By the way ... this data and the toolkit was obviously used, or at least considered for the ESA Mars Express mission, so I would assume it's usefull. And from what I learned so far, it includes most of the things one would need to plan and even execute such a mission like the dirty dozen.

The closest approach and delta V stuff is indeed available trough: http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi. Unfortunately it's not suitable for batch processing or such with little effort, I am afraid.

The reason why I am also looking for an accurat Visualization tool or programm is that one has to "sell" the idea as well and with just data on a speadsheet it will be hard to convince pontential investors to give away a few millions or even more.

I do have a rough idea how this could be (co) financed, but that's not far enough to be published yet. Before I need to know if I can do main mission steps and some other calculations with a few mouse clicks. Regarding to mission time lines, costs and estimated benefits and such. Therfore we need a solid base of scientific prooved data.

I agree that one has to start at some point, but what I learned so far is that the topic is not as simple as I thought it would be in the first place. Indeed there is a lot of physics involved, not talking about the economical stuff yet.

Once I have an overview what it might take I will start with some small thing that can be extended. I want to use as much prepared data and information as I can to reduce time effort on my side. Therfore I need to know which doors have to be left open from a software design perspective. Also I need to gain some domain knoledge regarding to space flight and physics involved.

... to be continued

[Phenix]

Strobelix,

Thanks a lot for your investigations and preperation. In the first place, keep things open and flexible and just start with the implementation you like and want to start and you feel the most confortable with :).

Other items, attribute will come after... keep it simple and have fun :)

[Strobelix]

Well I did some programming on the spice stuff, but there is quite some to learn about. However the JPL guys did a good job on that and there is quite a lot on data available.

Also the design of that software is quite straight forward and only offers commdan line abilities. Mainliy to load, manipulate and merge data and then printout some details, it has a pontential. From the stratetgy point of view we can assume that nasa and obviously esa will provide scientiffic accurate data trough that system. And that is why I would base my application on that "framework" and later integrate additional data as needed. Espieciall I hope for WISE data, since that mission will give us some nice and hopefully usefull data. Especially about size and composition of NEOs.

The more timeconsuming thing is that it's made for scientist and not for programmers. So the stuff is not really handy at the first look, but I am getting into it. I started to write object oriented warppers, that will enable more quick programming later. I did work for a about a week on that and progress is ok from my point of view. But still I have a lot to learn regarding to astronomy and space physics.

I'll keep you updated ;)

[joertexas]

Well I did some programming on the spice stuff, but there is quite some to learn about. However the JPL guys did a good job on that and there is quite a lot on data available.

Also the design of that software is quite straight forward and only offers commdan line abilities. Mainliy to load, manipulate and merge data and then printout some details, it has a pontential. From the stratetgy point of view we can assume that nasa and obviously esa will provide scientiffic accurate data trough that system. And that is why I would base my application on that "framework" and later integrate additional data as needed. Espieciall I hope for WISE data, since that mission will give us some nice and hopefully usefull data. Especially about size and composition of NEOs.

The more timeconsuming thing is that it's made for scientist and not for programmers. So the stuff is not really handy at the first look, but I am getting into it. I started to write object oriented warppers, that will enable more quick programming later. I did work for a about a week on that and progress is ok from my point of view. But still I have a lot to learn regarding to astronomy and space physics.

I'll keep you updated ;)

Terrific! Will you be able to generate porkchop plots with this data?

JR

[Phenix]

Strobelix,
Sounds good, and if you need help, please let me know.
Thanks :)

[Phenix]

Hey Strobelix :) are you still around ? Does anyone have news from Strobelix ?
Thanks