AstroForge Won’t Quit: Eyes Set On Asteroid Mining Despite Two Failed Missions

California-based asteroid mining startup AstroForge is set to continue its operations and is preparing for a third mission next year despite two previous missions failing. CEO Matt Gialich emphasises the importance of taking risks and learning from failures, highlighting that their spacecraft are developed at a fraction of the cost of some high-end satellites.

Space Miners: Young And Ambitious

AstroForge was founded on 10 January 2022 by Matthew Gialich and Jose Acain. Gialich had previously worked at Virgin Orbit and Bird (an e-scooter company), and Acain had nearly a decade of experience at SpaceX and NASA.  

The co-founders were convinced that successful asteroid mining could create a new supply chain of raw materials to Earth, so they set out to make the first commercial mining company on asteroids close to Earth.

The idea arose because Gialich realised the possibility of extracting precious metals such as platinum from asteroids, which are abundant in space but scarce on Earth.

The company planned to use available rocket technology and inexpensive satellites to make deep space missions economically feasible and eventually create a new frontier for mining.

In real life, however, mining asteroids was more complicated than it looked.

Brokkr-1: The First Step Is Always Troublesome

On 15 April 2023, AstroForge launched its first mission, Brokkr-1, to demonstrate its refining technologies in space. 

Brokkr-1 was a 6U CubeSat whose purpose was to verify engineering systems, flight test critical subsystems and demonstrate platinum extraction from a simulated asteroid in space.

After launch from SpaceX‘s Transporter-7, the satellite had difficulty identifying itself among 50+ other satellites and deploying solar panels due to magnetic field interference from the refinery system.

Exactly one month later, the company lost contact with the spacecraft without completing its baseline testing and demonstration missions. The last contact with Brokkr-1 was made on 16 May 2024 at 14:52 UTC, according to Astroforge’s website. Although telemetry data was received, the mission could not activate the payload due to the inability to establish a command uplink.

As a result, the primary objective was deemed unfulfilled. Still, the mission provided valuable insights for future work, particularly on magnetic field interference mitigation and improved communications systems for deep space operations.

The total cost of the Brokkr-1 mission is not listed anywhere in public sources. However, available information shows that the mission was part of the SpaceX Transporter-7 joint launch, typically costing $1-2 million per satellite. In addition, the development and integration of the OrbAstro-built 6U CubeSat likely cost $1-5 million, given AstroForge’s focus on cost-effectiveness and low-cost satellite technology.

Thus, the total cost of the Brokkr-1 mission, including launch and development costs, is estimated to be between $2 and $7 million.

The Second Astroforge Mission: Odin Goes Hunting

The AstroForge team did not give up after the failure of the first mission.

On 26 February 2025, the second mission launched from Kennedy Space Center on board SpaceX’s Falcon 9 as an additional payload with the company’s Athena lunar lander.

The mission, Odin, was a 120kg satellite equipped with advanced sensors and an optical camera to image the asteroid.

The second mission aimed to examine the near-Earth asteroid 2022 OB5 for precious metals such as platinum and gold. It was due to approach Earth at a distance of 650,000 kilometres in 2026.

The team built the new spacecraft in 10 months and spent only $3.5 million.

However, setbacks continued to haunt the space ore miners.

Shortly after separating from the rocket, communication problems occurred due to a technical glitch at the primary ground station in Australia.

Despite attempts to re-establish communication, Odin drifted in deep space, some 300,000 kilometres from Earth. It was briefly able to establish communication, but this was quickly lost.

‘No commands were getting through, and no data was getting through,’ Gialich wrote. Despite sending several commands, ‘we received nothing in return.’

On 6 March, AstroForge officially announced that the Odin mission had failed.

The company has published a detailed in-depth report on its attempts to contact Odin and the problems it faced.

What’s Next?

Despite the two failures, AstroForge remains committed to its vision of asteroid mining, viewing the Brokkr-1 and Odin missions as valuable experiences in space resource exploration.

The team is already preparing for a third mission, Vestri, which should learn from previous failures. Earlier this year, AstroForge raised $40 million from investors in a Series A round. The entire cost of the new mission is estimated at RD$55 million.

Vestri will be larger and have an improved propulsion system and avionics. The company also plans to hire ‘main level’ engineers with spacecraft experience to augment a workforce with more experience with launch vehicles.

Vestri will launch with Intuitive Machines’ IM-3 lunar mission in late 2025 or early 2026.

‘The horizon looks bright, and if we are successful, it will be a giant leap forward as we work to create a new and untapped supply chain of raw materials for Earth,’ AstroForge said.

Conclusions

Near-Earth asteroids are becoming a key area of interest as space mining develops.

Despite the significant costs of asteroid mining missions, the potential profits can justify the expense.

According to Asterank, a database tracking more than 600,000 asteroids, mining on the 10 most economically viable asteroids, mainly because of their proximity to Earth, could generate as much as $1.5 trillion.

NASA has demonstrated that it is possible to extract materials from asteroids successfully, as recently confirmed by the OSIRIS-REx mission, which obtained samples containing organic compounds from the asteroid Bennu.

Scientists are also interested in the metallic asteroid 16 Psyche, which NASA’s Psyche spacecraft will explore from 2029 to 2031.

Although the results are yet to be determined, this could be a lucrative industry.