---
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](https://huggingface.co/collections/juliensimon/orbital-mechanics-datasets-69c24caca4ab3934c9856994) 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](https://asterank.com/) 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

```python
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](https://asterank.com/) by Ian Webster, combining data from NASA/JPL Small-Body
Database, spectral survey data, and published asteroid composition models.

## Related datasets

- [neo-close-approaches](https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/neo-close-approaches) -- NEO close approaches from NASA JPL
- [space-track-satcat](https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/space-track-satcat) -- Full NORAD satellite catalog
- [space-launch-log](https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/space-launch-log) -- Global launch history

## Pipeline

Source code: [juliensimon/space-datasets](https://github.com/juliensimon/space-datasets)

## Citation

```bibtex
@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}
}
```

## License

[CC-BY-4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)