Kuiper Belt Exploration and Exploitation

Kurzfassung

A mission for the exploration and exploitation of the Kuiper belts and its resources was pro-posed and started with a thorough analysis of the Kuiper belt objects, their location, distribution and constituent materials. A set of possible missions was then generated, based on the information obtained. These included a variety of concepts and a feasibility analysis was required to narrow the choices down to the concepts with the most potential. The final selection led to a mission concept that involved a factory capable of producing other spacecraft and all the parts that constitute it, thus being capable of self-replication. The spacecraft included in this mission include mining rovers, exploration rovers, KBO orbiters, resource transporters and GPS analogous satellites that would constitute a constellation capable of servicing any travelling spacecraft with a Solar System positioning system. Key concepts of this mission such as 3D printing, mining concepts and in-situ power generation were then further researched.