How much usable ore is in an asteroid

[TerminalV]

I am nearly to the point I will begin unlocking the various mining component in my present career game and I am starting to think of building mining bases. Back in 0.90 I had created a nice orbital Minmus base with a core that was a Class-C asteroid. I would tug up fuel from Kerbin and use that to refuel a lander that was going down to the surface base, visit various biomes or complete various mission on Minmus. The base had a lab for resetting the science instruments on the lander and several docking ports for docking other vessels. Worked pretty well and was a lot of fun. Now with resource mining this sounds like an even better idea. Since I could mine and refine the ore right on the asteroid for use. I assume the amount of ore is somewhat proportional to the asteroids mass? Is there a percentage range of ore you can expect from an asteroid? What does the various scanners return when you scan an asteroid?

[Prepper-Jack]

I had thought asteroids had a 90% ore rating, or thereabouts. They can be more quickly mined, therefore, than other bodies - but unlike other bodies, they can be depleted.

[vicwarrior]

From what ive heard, not quite enough to make it worth your while to tug into LKO to set up a refueling outpost as very littloe ore will be left after the fuel you use to get it there. As they take lots of fuel to move around, however, if you can catch one of them on your way somewhere they can make your trip somewhere for pretty much free.

[TerminalV]

What about towing a big one into Minmus orbit. That should take less fuel, no?

[Luckless]

I really haven't had much time to play KSP since asteroids were added, and less since the newest builds, but how much asteroid mass to harvestable fuel mass is there on average? Can you make mining them more feasible with things like grab-n-go from flyby ones? (Don't haul the whole thing back, just wait for 'good' ones with favourable orbits you can dash out, milk dry, and return the fuel to a useful orbit while you leave the bulk of the asteroid mass on its original path?)

Or how effective can you make areobreak captures?

[problemecium]

All of it. ;P

[TerminalV]

Thanks, that helps alot!

No one has any experience mining asteroids yet?

[Mister Dilsby]

I'm en route to a C, and I really hope it has enough ore because otherwise that crew won't be coming home any time soon

[TerminalV]

I'm en route to a C, and I really hope it has enough ore because otherwise that crew won't be coming home any time soon

Update us, I will be interested in hearing how it works out.

I found the following thread that seems to give a mixed message as some think it worth the effort and other think its not.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/119433-Asteroid-Mining

[katateochi]

They seem to have plenty of fuel, enough that you can use the ore from them to fuel the astro-tug that brings them back to LKO and still have quite a lot of resources left in the asteroid.

I've not tried doing any scans with the resources scanning gear.

I've mostly been fetching class C's back to LKO and my astro-tug is totally self sufficient doing that.

The Class C's I've brought back have on average about 25 tons of resources left to mine That's after they've provided all the fuel to bring them back to orbit (and enter orbit without aero-braking) and refuelled the tug to go off on it's next mission. So they're pretty profitable and not a pain to maneuver about. Whereas the the Class A was mined dry after bringing it back (but still had enough to give the tug a full tank for it's next mission).

I've brought one class E back, wow, lots of fuel available but much more time consuming to get it back into low orbit (I did aero-brake that one, mostly to save time, but aero-braking asteroids kinda feels a bit wrong to me!). After returning it to orbit the tug refuelled from it and left for the next one. I forget to check exactly how much it had left at that point, but I set up a mining station on it and so far I've produced 8780 units of liquid fuel, 10,618 oxidizer, ~800 monoprop (so around 100 tons of fuel all together) and extracted a further 5100 units of raw ore and it still has 48.7 tons of resources left to mine.

So basically they are a self sustaining way of getting fuel in LKO at no extra cost to the space program, from here on I'm not going to need to lift any extra fuel from Kerbin again.

[TerminalV]

They seem to have plenty of fuel, enough that you can use the ore from them to fuel the astro-tug that brings them back to LKO and still have quite a lot of resources left in the asteroid.

I've not tried doing any scans with the resources scanning gear.

I've mostly been fetching class C's back to LKO and my astro-tug is totally self sufficient doing that.

The Class C's I've brought back have on average about 25 tons of resources left to mine That's after they've provided all the fuel to bring them back to orbit (and enter orbit without aero-braking) and refuelled the tug to go off on it's next mission. So they're pretty profitable and not a pain to maneuver about. Whereas the the Class A was mined dry after bringing it back (but still had enough to give the tug a full tank for it's next mission).

I've brought one class E back, wow, lots of fuel available but much more time consuming to get it back into low orbit (I did aero-brake that one, mostly to save time, but aero-braking asteroids kinda feels a bit wrong to me!). After returning it to orbit the tug refuelled from it and left for the next one. I forget to check exactly how much it had left at that point, but I set up a mining station on it and so far I've produced 8780 units of liquid fuel, 10,618 oxidizer, ~800 monoprop (so around 100 tons of fuel all together) and extracted a further 5100 units of raw ore and it still has 48.7 tons of resources left to mine.

So basically they are a self sustaining way of getting fuel in LKO at no extra cost to the space program, from here on I'm not going to need to lift any extra fuel from Kerbin again.

That is very encouraging katateochi. Hopefully I get the tech unlocked this weekend to give it a try myself. Thanks

[magnemoe]

From what ive heard, not quite enough to make it worth your while to tug into LKO to set up a refueling outpost as very littloe ore will be left after the fuel you use to get it there. As they take lots of fuel to move around, however, if you can catch one of them on your way somewhere they can make your trip somewhere for pretty much free.

This will depend totally on the asteroid trajectory. one who pass close to kerbin and is easy to get into equatorial orbit will cost less than 500 m/s if you aerobrake.