metadata
license: cc-by-4.0
pretty_name: Asterank Asteroid Mining Economics
language:
- en
description: >-
Mining economics for ~600K asteroids: estimated value, profit, delta-v
accessibility, spectral types, and orbital elements from the Asterank project.
task_categories:
- tabular-classification
- tabular-regression
tags:
- space
- asteroids
- mining
- economics
- orbital-mechanics
- open-data
- tabular-data
size_categories:
- 100K<n<1M
configs:
- config_name: default
data_files:
- split: train
path: data/asterank_asteroid_mining.parquet
default: true
Asterank Asteroid Mining Economics
Part of the Orbital Mechanics Datasets collection on Hugging Face.
Economic analysis of 600,000 asteroids for space mining potential, combining NASA/JPL orbital data with estimated accessibility and resource value from the Asterank project.
Dataset description
Asterank ranks nearly 600,000 cataloged asteroids by estimated mining profitability. It combines multiple data sources -- NASA/JPL Small-Body Database orbital elements, spectral classifications, and published scientific papers on asteroid composition -- to estimate each asteroid's resource value and the cost of reaching it.
Key economic fields:
- estimated_value_usd -- total estimated resource value based on spectral type and size
- estimated_profit_usd -- value minus estimated mission cost (delta-v dependent)
- closeness_score -- accessibility metric (lower delta-v = higher closeness)
- asterank_score -- composite ranking combining value, profit, and accessibility
Schema
| Column | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
full_name |
string | Full formatted name (e.g. "1 Ceres") |
name |
string | IAU name if assigned (e.g. "Ceres") |
designation_number |
int | Permanent designation number |
provisional_designation |
string | Provisional designation (e.g. "2024 YR4") |
orbit_class |
string | Orbital class (MBA, APO, ATE, AMO, etc.) |
spectral_type_smassii |
string | SMASS II spectral classification |
spectral_type_bus |
string | Bus (Tholen-like) spectral classification |
spectral_type_tholen |
string | Tholen spectral classification |
is_neo |
bool | Near-Earth Object flag |
is_pha |
bool | Potentially Hazardous Asteroid flag |
absolute_magnitude |
float64 | Absolute magnitude H |
magnitude_slope |
float64 | Magnitude slope parameter G |
diameter_km |
float64 | Measured diameter (km) |
diameter_sigma_km |
float64 | Diameter uncertainty (km) |
albedo |
float64 | Geometric albedo |
extent_km |
string | Tri-axial extents (km) |
rotation_period_h |
float64 | Rotation period (hours) |
gm_km3_s2 |
float64 | GM gravitational parameter (km^3/s^2) |
semi_major_axis_au |
float64 | Semi-major axis (AU) |
eccentricity |
float64 | Orbital eccentricity |
inclination_deg |
float64 | Orbital inclination (degrees) |
ascending_node_deg |
float64 | Longitude of ascending node (degrees) |
argument_perihelion_deg |
float64 | Argument of perihelion (degrees) |
mean_anomaly_deg |
float64 | Mean anomaly (degrees) |
perihelion_au |
float64 | Perihelion distance (AU) |
aphelion_au |
float64 | Aphelion distance (AU) |
orbital_period_yr |
float64 | Orbital period (years) |
mean_motion_deg_day |
float64 | Mean motion (degrees/day) |
tisserand_jupiter |
float64 | Tisserand parameter w.r.t. Jupiter |
earth_moid_au |
float64 | Minimum orbit intersection distance to Earth (AU) |
earth_moid_ld |
float64 | Earth MOID in Lunar Distances |
jupiter_moid_au |
float64 | Minimum orbit intersection distance to Jupiter (AU) |
estimated_value_usd |
float64 | Estimated total resource value (USD) |
estimated_profit_usd |
float64 | Estimated mining profit (USD) |
closeness_score |
float64 | Accessibility score (higher = easier to reach) |
asterank_score |
float64 | Composite Asterank ranking score |
orbit_condition_code |
float64 | JPL orbit condition code (0=best, 9=worst) |
data_arc_days |
float64 | Observation arc length (days) |
n_obs_used |
float64 | Number of observations used in orbit fit |
first_obs_date |
datetime | Date of first observation |
last_obs_date |
datetime | Date of last observation |
orbit_rms |
float64 | Orbit fit RMS residual |
color_index_bv |
float64 | B-V color index |
color_index_ub |
float64 | U-B color index |
Quick stats
- 600,000 asteroids ranked by mining economics
- 1,800 Near-Earth Objects, 0 Potentially Hazardous
- 595,200 with measured diameters, 600,000 with spectral types
- 7 distinct orbital classes
- Most valuable: 511 Davida (1903 LU) at $15,382,627,787,839,414,272 (profit: $1,064,010,723,169,747,328)
- Median estimated value: $0
- Total estimated value of all asteroids: $105,731,413,739,251,945,177,088
Usage
from datasets import load_dataset
ds = load_dataset("juliensimon/asterank-asteroid-mining", split="train")
df = ds.to_pandas()
# Top 20 most profitable asteroids
top_profit = df.nlargest(20, "estimated_profit_usd")[
["full_name", "orbit_class", "spectral_type_smassii",
"estimated_value_usd", "estimated_profit_usd", "earth_moid_au"]
]
# Near-Earth asteroids sorted by profit
neo_mining = df[df["is_neo"] == True].nlargest(50, "estimated_profit_usd")
# Value distribution by orbit class
by_class = df.groupby("orbit_class")["estimated_value_usd"].agg(["count", "median", "sum"])
by_class = by_class.sort_values("sum", ascending=False)
# Accessible targets: low MOID + high profit
accessible = df[
(df["earth_moid_au"] < 0.1) &
(df["estimated_profit_usd"] > 1e9)
].sort_values("estimated_profit_usd", ascending=False)
Data source
Asterank by Ian Webster, combining data from NASA/JPL Small-Body Database, spectral survey data, and published asteroid composition models.
Related datasets
- neo-close-approaches -- NEO close approaches from NASA JPL
- space-track-satcat -- Full NORAD satellite catalog
- space-launch-log -- Global launch history
Pipeline
Source code: juliensimon/space-datasets
Citation
@dataset{asterank_mining,
author = {Simon, Julien},
title = {Asterank Asteroid Mining Economics},
year = {2026},
publisher = {Hugging Face},
url = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/asterank-asteroid-mining},
note = {Based on Asterank (asterank.com) asteroid mining economics data}
}