Asteroid-mining startup AstroForge is making waves with its plan to land on a near-Earth asteroid in 2025.
The company announced the expedition on Tuesday (August 20), also revealing that it has raised US$40 million in a Series A funding round, bringing the total capital it has accumulated to US$55 million.
The mission will use AstroForge’s Vestri probe, a 440 pound spacecraft designed to dock with a metallic asteroid. The launch is scheduled to take place as a ridealong on Intuitive Machines’ (NASDAQ:LUNR) IM-3 Moon mission.
If successful, it will be the first privately funded mission to land on a celestial body beyond the Earth-Moon system.
Founded in January 2022, AstroForge is looking to pioneer off-Earth mining and make off-world resources available for commercial use. While other space ventures are targeting water extraction from asteroids, AstroForge is concentrating on mining metals, with the goal of unlocking cost-effective and sustainable solutions to address resource depletion.
The California-based company hopes that it will be able to develop a new supply chain for critical raw materials.
The upcoming asteroid-landing mission is its third in a series of exploratory space ventures.
The company’s first mission, Brokkr-1, was launched in April 2023 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Although the firm’s primary goal of demonstrating refinery technology in space was not achieved — due to the AstroForge team’s inability to activate the probe’s refinery payload — the mission provided valuable experience.
AstroForge’s second mission, Odin, is set to launch later this year. Odin will serve as a precursor to the 2025 asteroid-landing mission by gathering crucial data about the target asteroid.
The Odin spacecraft will be a secondary payload on Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 mission to the Moon. It will focus on imaging the asteroid, giving AstroForge critical insights for its subsequent mining efforts. Odin, a 220 pound vehicle built entirely in-house, is replacing an earlier version of the spacecraft that failed vibration testing in March 2023.
AstroForge’s third mission will play a pivotal role in characterizing the composition of the targeted asteroid. The company’s goal is to assess both the quality and quantity of the valuable elements on the asteroid.
Securities Disclosure: I, Giann Liguid, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.
