US Asteroid Mining Startup AstroForge Completes $40M Series A Financing
TapTechNews August 21st news, the US asteroid mining startup AstroForge announced that it has completed a $40 million (TapTechNews note: currently about 285 million yuan) Series A financing, led by NovaThreshold, and the company's total financing amount has reached $55 million (currently about 392 million yuan).
AstroForge said that the new round of financing will be used to support its third mission - Vestri. This mission is planned to be launched in late 2025 on IntuitiveMachines' IM-3 lunar lander and go to an undisclosed asteroid. The 200-kilogram Vestri spacecraft will rendezvous with the asteroid and land on its surface to conduct characteristic analysis, including assessing the amount of precious metals that can be extracted from it.
In addition, AstroForge will also use this funding to further improve its technology of refining asteroid materials in deep space. Matt Gialich, the co-founder and CEO of the company, said that the initial plan was to test its refining technology on the cube satellite Brokkr-1 that was supposed to be launched last year. However, due to communication problems with the spacecraft, the company failed to do so.
Gialich also encountered problems when developing its second mission (originally called Brokkr-2 and later renamed Odin). This mission will fly over an M-type asteroid that is considered to have a high concentration of metals. The 100-kilogram spacecraft failed in the vibration test in March. The investigation found that this was caused by a crack in a part of the spacecraft structure. The review also found problems with the spacecraft's propellant tank, harness, and avionics system.
On July 30 this year, AstroForge announced that the company has decided to internalize the manufacturing work of the Odin. Since the above announcement, Gialich said that the company has successfully completed the vibration test and is about to enter the thermal vacuum test. The company is making every effort to complete the manufacturing of the Odin in the next few months so that it can be launched on the IM-2 mission. He said that the Odin must be delivered 35 days before launch. IntuitiveMachines said in an earnings conference call on August 13 that it plans to launch IM-2 in December or January next year.
AstroForge has not disclosed the details of the mission after Vestri, but Gialich said that it is expected to talk about these plans after the launch of the Odin. He said that the company is still confident of bringing the first batch of platinum back to Earth by 2030.