Optimal Routing and Trajectory Planning for Asteroid Mining With Partial In-Situ Resource Utilization

This paper proposes a high-level routing and trajectory optimization approach for near-Earth asteroid mining, specifically considering partial in-situ resource utilization for propellant replenishment. Unlike conventional routing problems, asteroids are dynamic, and an infinite number of possible trajectories exist between them. Furthermore, the required cost (fuel) highly depends on the departure and transfer times. Therefore, it is essential to simultaneously determine the sequence of visiting asteroids, the optimal departure time from each asteroid, the optimal transfer time between them, and refueling amounts at each refuelable asteroid. The problem is mathematically formulated as a mixed-integer nonlinear programming, and we propose a solution methodology that iteratively solves a decoupled problem by alternating between a mixed-integer linear programming and sequential nonlinear optimizations. We demonstrate the efficacy of the methodology through a case study based on data from a real-world set of promising asteroids for both mining and propellant production.