AstroForge raises Series A for asteroid mining

The company’s aim is to establish an untapped supply chain of raw materials for use on Earth.

The funding round was led by Nova Threshold with participation from 776, Initialized, Caladan, YC, Uncorrelated Ventures and Jed McCaleb. It brings the total raised by AstroForge to $55 million.

The company launched its first mission, Brokkr-1 (a 6U CubeSat), in April 2023. Later this year, it expects to launch its second mission, Odin (pictured), into deep space. This will launch as a rideshare payload on Intuitive Machine’s IM-2 mission.

AstroForge writes:

“Our third mission will feature our 200kg production vehicle, Vestri, which is designed to return to our target Near Earth Asteroid and dock with the body in space. Vestri’s insights and characterization of our target asteroid’s composition will allow us to obtain the quality and quantity of valuable elements located on the asteroid. The Vestri spacecraft will be developed completely in-house from the start, and launch on Intuitive Machines’ third mission in 2025.”

‍”If successful, this mission will be the first private mission to land on another body outside of our Earth-Moon system and will move us closer to realizing our mission of making off-world resources accessible to all humankind.”

In terms of asteroid mining, the asteroid Davida  – with a diameter 326 kilometres – is said to be worth $27 quintillion because of its content of nickel, iron, cobalt, nitrogen, ammonia, and hydrogen.

Image: AstroForge

See also: Sift raises $17.5m Series A for hardware sensor data platform