Cuplan asteroid mining

Cuplan Asteroid Mining is the system of mining asteroids in the Cuplan Corporatocracy, a system used for about 2 centuries as of the 2470s.

The destruction of Cuplar Ib L3, what was the largest asteroid in the Cuplan star system, had to go under 3 total mining operations to be fully dismantled. It was one of the most wealthy events in Cuplan history.

Operation
Basic mining operations utilize a remotely controlled probe directed toward a specific asteroid. This probe carries a 63-88 megaton thermonuclear warhead, capable of covering an entire asteroid for nearly a minute in a thermonuclear blast of about 1100 °C.

Since most elements and precious metals in asteroids have melting points of over 1200 °C (gold and nickel is solidified) a thermonuclear blast of that temperature turns most rock into molten rock, leaving large quantities of super-heated precious metals and elements left.

Due to the extremely minute temperature of space, this molten lava soon naturally solidifies. Allowing for the probe to begin running spectrographic analyses and isolating specific metals. By the late 22nd/early 23rd centuries these probes began to be assisted by freighters which would then wound the analyses and subsequently collect the metals and probe.

Finance
Each average asteroid is estimated to cost an average of 5,740,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 pounds, over 400x larger then the overall financial assets of The Conglomerate. Although since this money is split upon external, civil, political, worker, the Suzerainty, the Dervici and other purposes. The typical finalized finance acquired is about 460,000,000,000,000 pounds. About 4.5 or 4.7 times the global financial assets on Cuplar.

The mining of Cuplar Ib L3 cost all together about 7.6 septillion pounds and had a finalized cost of 610 trillion pounds. It was one of the most plentiful mining operation ever achieved by the Conglomerate.