NASA will test the technology of developing asteroids using sunlight

NASA-funded ICS Associates Inc has filed a patent application for a new way to extract resources from asteroids. It has been called “optical mining”. This is a fairly simple technology that does not require the use of complex and heavy robots. It should provide the extraction of water and other substances from the asteroid by heating its surface to high temperatures with the help of sunlight.

The technology is designed to extract water and other useful substances in orbit and deliver them to the place in space where they are needed, without the need for expensive deliveries from the surface of the Earth.

To do this, the device synchronizes its movement with a pre-selected asteroid and puts it in a special impenetrable shell. Then, focusing the sun's rays, the apparatus creates a concentrated beam, which begins to heat the upper layer of the cosmic body at the desired point. As it warms up, the substance from the surface begins to “crumble” - the pressure of the heated substance rises, and it evaporates, breaking off microscopic pieces of rock in the process.

In this way, as conceived by scientists, for example, it is possible to extract from asteroids such a substance necessary for life as water. Evaporating water will accumulate in a sealed cocoon in which the asteroid is wrapped, and then it can be pumped into the prepared container through a filter system using pumps. There it will freeze, and will be stored in the form of ice.

To transport the collected water, it will also be used to create jet propulsion. By heating it with the help of sunlight, the space "truck" will be able to go to the place of delivery, driven by traction due to the outgoing water vapor.

To prove the idea is working, ICS Associates Inc will test it on a unique solar “stove”, which was built back in the 70s at the White Sands shooting range in New Mexico. Previously, the stove was used to simulate the conditions of rapid heating to high temperatures arising after a nuclear explosion.



The stove consists of two prefabricated mirrors. A large flat mirror can rotate and direct the sun's rays onto a concave mirror, which in turn concentrates the rays at the target point. There, over the next two months, an attempt will be made to develop the rock using sunlight.

NASA has long been working on the issue of developing asteroids and is funding programs aimed at developing schemes for capturing and delivering small celestial bodies to the right place .