AstroForge has secured $13 million in seed funding to advance its asteroid mining initiatives, with plans to launch a small satellite in January 2023 for a refining demonstration in low Earth orbit. The company aims to develop spacecraft capable of mining asteroids and returning refined materials to Earth, targeting a cost of under $10 million per satellite. While the potential return from these missions is modest, estimated in the tens of millions of dollars, it represents a significant step forward in the field of asteroid mining. The economic viability of such ventures remains debated, especially when compared to terrestrial mining methods.
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Last week AstroForge announced that it had closed a $13 million round of "seed plus" funding, which was led by Initialized Capital, with investments from Seven Seven Six, EarthRise, Aera VC, Liquid 2, and Soma. The company presently has seven employees, and this will allow that number to double. AstroForge is planning a launch in January 2023 of a small satellite to perform a refining demonstration in low Earth orbit. After that, the company is planning two more missions into deep space, and this funding will provide the runway to carry AstroForge that far.
"We don't need that much capital," Gialich said. The company plans to design spacecraft small enough to fly as part of rideshare launches. "We're going after this by bringing along a very, very small spacecraft to mine asteroids. So our first return mission is not going to return trillions of dollars. It's not going to return billions of dollars. It's going to return tens of millions of dollars."
Platinum is currently priced at $31,000 a kilogram, so the company is likely talking about bringing hundreds of kilograms of platinum back to Earth, or less. To be clear, this is still an enormous leap—NASA's OSIRIS-Rex mission is believed to be returning about 1 kg of unrefined material from the surface of an asteroid at a mission cost of about $800 million.
To do this, the company plans to build and launch what Gialich characterized as a "small" spacecraft to a near-Earth asteroid to extract regolith, refine that material, and send it back toward Earth on a ballistic trajectory. It will then fly into Earth's atmosphere with a small heat shield and land beneath a parachute. The goal is to build each of these satellites at a recurring cost of significantly less than $10 million.
I meant finding replacements for things like Palladium.BWV said:True, asteroid mining will never be a cheaper source of palladium than the 91 Honda Accord parked across the street