Astral Depths Frontier

The astral depths frontier is a group of M-type (metal-rich) asteriods and it's mining operations inside main asteroid belt of the solar system.

Geography

The Astral Depths Frontier is located in the inner region of the main asteroid belt, within 2.5 AU of the Sun and consists of 11 asteroids, 23 mining platforms and 3 space stations.

Natural Resources

Of the 11 asteroids, the 3 largest contain about 80% of the total mass of the cluster and are processed by 14 of the 23 mining platforms. They consist of platinum, nickel, iron, cobalt.

The 8 minor asteroids have one mining platform each, except for the largest which has 2 mining platforms. Nickel, iron, cobalt, water, nitrogen, hydrogen, ammonia, gold, magnesium silicate, aluminum, iron silicate are all mined from these.

The estimated value of the cluster is 8.720.000.000.000 credits.

History

The tight cluster of M-type asteroids was first observed in 2052 by a Aether Aviation Enterprises observatory.
A space probe was sent promptly sent in 2053, to further investigate the group and estabilish feasibility of mining operations.
The Astral Depths Frontier was first conceptionalized in the mid 2050s, by a project group of Aether Aviation Enterprises under the leadership of Dr. Aimee Gray and Dr. Dean Hayden.
The first stage, an unmanned automatic assembly station, was constructed from 2058 to 2062 in Aether Aviation Enterprises facillities, was lauchend in 2064 and arrived at the cluster in 2067. Harvesting resources, primarily iron, from an asteriod of the cluster the assembly station built temporary basic facilities, construction materials, worker drones and scanner probes to prepare grounds for the arrival of the main facillities.
In 2068 the first space station was launched which arrived at the cluster in 2071. The same year engineers completed two mining platforms making it the first asteroid mining operation not processing a near earth object.
The frontier has been steadily expanded ever since with launches of additional modules every few years.

Type

Star System Sector