  Asteroid mining has been proposed as an approach to complement Earth-based
supplies of rare earth metals and supplying resources in space, such as water.
However, existing studies on the economic viability of asteroid mining have
remained rather simplistic and do not provide much guidance on which
technological improvements would be needed for increasing its economic
viability. This paper develops a techno-economic analysis of asteroid mining
with the objective of providing recommendations for future technology
development and performance improvements. Both, in-space resource provision
such as water and return of platinum to Earth are considered. Starting from
first principles of techno-economic analysis, gradually additional economic and
technological factors are added to the analysis model. Applied to mining
missions involving spacecraft reuse, learning curve effect, and multiple
spacecraft, their economic viability is assessed. A sensitivity analysis with
respect to throughput rate, spacecraft mass, and resource price is performed.
Furthermore, a sample asteroid volatile mining architecture based on small
CubeSat-class spacecraft is presented. It is concluded that key technological
drivers for asteroid mining missions are throughput rate, number of spacecraft
per mission, and the rate in which successive missions are conducted.
