THE SITNIKOV PROBLEM, LOW ENERGY TRANSFERS, AND THE ECONOMIC FEASIBILITY OF ASTEROID MINING

Asteroid mining can be profitable; however, it is currently not economically feasible. Space companies have reduced the cost of missions by using low energy transfer. Low energy transfer uses connecting orbits requiring much less energy to move a spacecraft. To demonstrate low energy transfer, I investigate the Sitnikov Problem with eccentricity of 0.2 and 0.9. The Sitnikov Problem is a form of the gravitational three-body problem with two heavy bodies orbiting in a plane while a light third body moves perpendicular to the plane. I compute the Poincaré map and find connecting orbits. I then compare past missions that used low energy transfer to similar missions which did not. In all cases, using low energy transfer lowered the cost. This shows that we should investigate the use of low energy transfer in asteroid mining missions to reduce cost.