Emissicius & Stradivarius Asteroid Survey Ship

thingiverse

As part of a recent project, I designed an asteroidal survey craft called the Emissicius, accompanied by a SoLTeC (Solar Laser Transducer Craft) that beams power directly onto the ship. The first stage involves sending out an asteroid survey ship to scout ahead of the actual mining rig, which will follow later. This initial ship also carries a Stradivarius sonic jackhammer, a unique concept I developed. The front-mounted Stradivarius undocks from the mothercraft and flies down to the surface, where four large screws securely embed it into the asteroid. Its primary mission is to determine the asteroid's composition. Once anchored in place, it transmits a series of sonic waves through the asteroid via a pressurized speaker bag pressed firmly against the surface. Similar to an impactor probe, this process generates seismic data and audio recordings that allow for an internal structure map to be created, revealing the entire makeup of the asteroid, including weaker areas, stronger areas, topography, and material composition. The second component is the ship's computer hub, power storage bay, and instrument suite. This area houses cameras used to examine the asteroid's surface and locate flat landing sites. Additionally, it features a laser capable of carving out landing spots or vaporizing regolith to expose underlying rock for spectrometer analysis from above. Inside the instruments bay lies a drop ship that will carry microphones down to the surface. Measuring about forty centimeters in height with a thirty-centimeter-diameter base, this lander descends to the asteroid and enables the microphones to magnetize and roll around on the surface. The actual rollers designed for operation on the surface function only on ferrous asteroids, receiving power from nearby SoLTeCs that energize the mining process. Each unit is roughly the size of an average iPhone, featuring two screw-like wheels that rotate to propel it forward, backward, or counterrotate to achieve 360-degree movement. Once positioned correctly, a pair of pitons digs into the asteroid's surface, securing the rover in place. As the wheels demagnetize to avoid interfering with the microphone, a drop-down microphone is lowered to the surface, ready to listen for sound pulses from the Stradivarius. Once the microphones are deployed and secured, the Stradivarius unleashes a series of sound waves that map the internal structure of the asteroid and identify weak areas within its composition. This process continues for days until the next stage can commence. However, since magnets only function on ferrous asteroids, these microphones can be dropped as a massive net instead of using the rover design.