It may still sound like science fiction and a nebulous future marked by the impulse of space exploration, but when talking about asteroid mining we can already conjugate in the present. The American startup AstroForge, one of the most talked about in the ambitious race to reach the mineral “treasures” that wander in space, has just announced two missions with which it intends to clear its path. And both are scheduled for 2023.
Their goal: to get ahead of their competitors.
You want to do? First, complete a refinery trial with which it hopes to demonstrate the potential of its technology. Then, launch a space expedition to observe one of the asteroids that has caught his attention. “With the launches secured and the partners on board, we are accelerating the way to make asteroid mining a short-term solution to preserve the Earth’s dwindling resources”, comment its leaders, Jose Acain and Matt Gialich, who serves as CEO of the company.
The first mission, already in April. That’s right, the first milestone on that schedule will come in a few months, in early spring. In collaboration with OrbAstro and aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9, the company plans to launch its first mission as early as April. With it, he seeks to test the technology he has been developing. How will do? The goal is to reach low orbit to test its technology and see if it can refine platinum in microgravity.
“We will demonstrate the capabilities of our refinery with the aim of validating the technology and carrying out extractions in zero gravity”, details the startup. The ship will launch pre-loaded with an asteroid-like material that the company will vaporize to classify its elemental components.
And then? Then the second mission will arrive, scheduled for October and which basically consists of a trip into space to —Specifies AstroForge— “observe our target asteroid”. Intuitive Machines, which has reached an agreement with the space mining firm, goes a little further: the idea is to launch AstroForge’s Brokk-2 vehicle taking advantage of Intuitue Machines’ second lunar mission in the second half of 2023 to approach and observe the asteroid. .
“Both missions are crucial not only for AstroForge, but for society in general. We are proving step by step that asteroid mining is not a fantasy, but a viable method to protect and preserve the Earth, ”he claims. In any case, the company looks beyond 2023 and is already talking about a third and fourth mission to extract and refine its metals with takeoff in 2025.
a bit of context. AstroForge is preparing its next big step after having closed a seed capital round in May 2022 that amounted to 13 million dollars, an important injection of funds to achieve an objective recognized by the company: “To become the first commercial company to exploit an asteroid and bring the materials back to Earth.” Those responsible for the firm are not newcomers to the technology sector either. Gialich, for example, is a veteran of Virgin Galactic and Bird. During an interview with Bloomberg he explained that his goal is to extract and refine metals from asteroids.
A juicy business… with an environmental face. The key to his project —insists Gialich— is that it considers the refining of metals from asteroids, with which it is expected to reduce costs and also the carbon dioxide emissions that are generated during the collection of rare earths on our planet. “We do our refining on site, on the asteroid itself. We do not bring the material to Earth to refine it, ”he explains to Bloomberg.
Another of its keys is logistics and how it is organized. The company plans to outsource the infrastructure, commissioning the construction of the ship to OrbAstro or the launch to SpaceX. AstroForge focuses on refining technology in space and plotting trajectories. To favor the profitability of his business, he also points to deposits with a high concentration of metals, higher than what can be found on Earth. The task is not simple. Before her, firms such as Planetary Resources or Deep Space Industries tried to explore space mining, which ended up refocusing over time.
Cover image: NASA
