AstroForge Q3 2024 Updates
We’re excited to share our journey with those who are as passionate about reshaping the future of space mining as we are. We’ve made incredible strides in the past few months!
In this newsletter:
Rebuilding our spacecraft
Closing Series A funding round and Announcing Mission 3
New Headquarters
Updated Testing and Advancements
July
A Historic Rebuild In July, we reached a critical milestone by rebuilding our spacecraft, Odin, in just 4.5 months following a vibration test failure earlier this year. This unprecedented feat in spacecraft construction included replacing major systems such as radios and solar panels, and developing custom power and flight control boards. Our team worked tirelessly, with our clean room running 24/7 for over a month straight, to ensure Odin was integrated and ready for environmental testing.
August
Series A Success & Mission 3 Announcement August marked a significant financial achievement with the close of our Series A round, led by Nova Threshold with notable investors like 776 and Initialized, raising a total of $55M. This capital will enable us to further our mission to revolutionize space mining and PGM (Platinum Group Metals) extraction.
We also publicly announced details about our upcoming Vestri mission. This mission will land on the same asteroid visited by Odin, allowing us to measure the quantity of precious metals. Our spacecraft underwent two critical test campaigns this month—vibration testing (a requirement for our Falcon 9 launch) and thermal vacuum testing to simulate the extreme space environment. Both were successful, paving the way for our launch readiness.
Visit the links below to read more coverage of these announcements:
New Headquarters Our brand new 65,000 sqft headquarters in Seal Beach will support our growing team and further development of our spacecraft and refinery technologies.
September
Thermal Testing & Mission Operations Enhancements In September, we conducted thermal vacuum (TVAC) testing for Odin. This test focused on exposing the spacecraft to the space environment, where the craft will encounter simultaneous freezing and heating depending on its solar exposure.
In addition, we enhanced our flight software with updated control systems for the reaction wheels, power management, and transponder firmware. We also tested our ability to command and receive data back from the spacecraft remotely through our simulated ground station all the way to our mission operations control center where the vehicle is monitored through our in-house designed mission operations software.
Refinery Advancements
Our refinery technology saw major upgrades in August and September. We increased the vacuum chamber’s volume by 8x, which allowed for larger samples and longer duration testing where we were able to tune and improve material removal rates. September brought insights into the potential terrestrial applications of our refinery, particularly in deep mining. We’re in discussions with major mining companies about our technology’s potential impact.
Our key insight is that while terrestrial mines generate high throughput, they do so at high financial and process inefficiency costs. Many deep platinum group metal (PGM) mines struggle to operate profitably due to high extraction costs linked to ore grade and depth. Our refinery could be highly competitive, potentially cutting the industry average all-in-sustaining cost (AISC) by more than 90%. We’ll continue refining this technology and expect further clarity in the coming months.
Algorithms
The algorithms team drives the critical math behind reaching the asteroid, focusing on Guidance (our destination), Navigation (our current position), and Control (how we maneuver).
We hit a major milestone: running a full in-house flight simulation. By integrating our GNC algorithms with a dynamics model—simulating how our spacecraft behaves in space—we tested key components like our Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU), star trackers, and reaction wheels, paving the way for high-fidelity mission rehearsals and advancing our spacecraft operations significantly.
October
Milestones We have an ambitious plan for October, including:
finalizing the mission sequences in the spacecraft’s flight software
preparing for our next series of GNC and Flight Software tests
mission operations training with the vehicle in the loop
advancing our refinery testing and demonstrating high metal recovery rates from terrestrial ore samples
Thank you for following our journey—we look forward to sharing more as we continue to push the boundaries of space mining and technology.