{"id":115976,"date":"2025-04-26T05:45:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-26T09:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.freethink.com\/?post_type=ftm_article&p=115976"},"modified":"2025-04-25T10:18:35","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T14:18:35","slug":"asteroid-mining-astroforge","status":"publish","type":"ftm_article","link":"https:\/\/www.freethink.com\/space\/asteroid-mining-astroforge","title":{"rendered":"This startup is racing to mine the final frontier"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019s 2030. A shortage of rare metals needed to build many clean energy technologies threatens to stymie global decarbonization efforts, but thankfully, a mining startup just proved we can tap into a new source for the materials: asteroids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asteroid mining<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Earth is an excellent provider for humanity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not only does it supply us with breathable air, liquid water, and the other basics that we need to survive, its crust also contains more than 90 elements in thousands of combinations. Over the millennia, we\u2019ve mined the materials to make everything from arrowheads to smartphones.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To reach the next level of civilization, though, we might need to take our mining efforts off-world \u2014 and a space startup unlike any other aims to be the one to break that new ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where we\u2019ve been<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

About 2.6 million years ago, early humans started making tools out of the stones they could readily access on Earth\u2019s surface. If they found stones that were particularly useful, they would use their hands or primitive tools to dig into the ground nearby in search of more like them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This digging helped humans discover other <\/em>useful materials that we could then mine. The mining of copper and other metals, for example, allowed us to build stronger tools and weapons and led us into the Bronze Age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the types of materials we mined evolved, so did our mining techniques. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simple open-pit mines were joined by underground tunnels that gave us access to even more kinds of materials and in greater quantities. Stone shovels were replaced by stronger tools, and after using fire and water to crack rock for thousands of years, miners discovered in the 1600s that explosives were even more effective. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Stone
Michael Garlick \/ Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption>
A carving of a lead miner thought to be at least 800 years old\n<\/div><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Industrial Revolution brought mechanization to the mining industry, making it easier to extract and haul valuable materials, including the fossil fuels that are now the world\u2019s most mined resources by volume. It also brought electricity, which meant light, better ventilation systems, and safer equipment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, many mines are high-tech operations, with survey drones, autonomous trucks, and remotely operated drills. To combat climate change, some companies are replacing their diesel vehicles with battery-electric ones<\/a> and building on-site solar and wind farms<\/a> to power their operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To the prehistoric miners who dug for flint with their bare hands, these massive pits, metal birds, and autonomous machines would seem like sorcery or the work of the gods \u2014 but the reusable rockets poised to take mining to its next level would likely be beyond all comprehension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where we\u2019re going (maybe)<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

To have a significant impact on climate change, we\u2019re going to need to decarbonize a lot more than just mining, and many clean energy technologies, including solar panels and hydrogen fuel cells<\/a>, require their own kind of mined resource: platinum group metals (PGMs).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPlatinum group metals are critical for today\u2019s energy sector industrial base and will play a key role in tomorrow\u2019s decarbonized economy,\u201d according to the US Department of Energy (DOE)<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, these six metals (ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, osmium, iridium, and platinum) are among the least abundant elements on Earth, and extracting and refining them is a complex, expensive process<\/a> that requires a lot of energy and water. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the US does have a small domestic supply of PGMs, it relies heavily on imports<\/a> to meet its demand, mostly from South Africa, which contains about 89%<\/a> of the known PGM reserves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The concentration of the world\u2019s PGMs in just one location makes the supply chain susceptible to disruption, according to a 2022 report<\/a> by the DOE, which also determined that the global supply of one PGM in particular \u2014 iridium \u2014 might not be adequate to meet the US\u2019s decarbonization goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, rather than continuing to rely on the Earth to provide the PGMs we need for the clean energy revolution (and many other applications<\/a>), some people think we should start extracting the metals from asteroids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We already think we can do it for a better marginal cost than you can do it on Earth.”<\/p>Matt Gialich<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Asteroids are the debris left over after our solar system formed billions of years ago, and scientific observations suggest that some of these space rocks contain iridium and other PGMs in much higher concentrations<\/a> than we find on Earth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we can extract PGMs from the asteroids in our galactic neighborhood, we could not only shore up the supply, but also avoid the drawbacks of mining them on Earth (water pollution, carbon emissions from equipment, etc.), and thanks to reusable rockets, the cost of reaching these valuable space rocks has never been lower.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe’re less than 10 years away from running out of iridium,\u201d Matthew Gialich, co-founder and CEO of asteroid mining startup AstroForge<\/a>, told Freethink. \u201cNow maybe we’ll find a mythical ore deposit or maybe we’ll figure out how to mine 10,000 meters under the Earth, but the reality is it\u2019s more economically feasible to mine in space at the point we’re already at.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe already think we can do it for a better marginal cost than you can do it on Earth,\u201d he continued, \u201cand at the end of the day, economics always wins.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
AstroForge<\/figcaption>
The AstroForge team with its Odin spacecraft\n<\/div><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

AstroForge isn\u2019t the first to look at space rocks and see dollar signs \u2014 astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson predicted<\/a> in 2015 that the world\u2019s first trillionaire will be \u201cthe person who exploits the natural resources on asteroids.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also isn\u2019t trying to do something completely<\/em> unprecedented. In 2010, JAXA successfully retrieved bits of an asteroid with its Hayabusa<\/a> mission, and a decade later, it completed its second asteroid sampling mission. In 2023, NASA retrieved its first asteroid samples<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But these three missions have only managed to collect about 127 grams of material from asteroids \u2014 less than the weight of a baseball \u2014 and the process has been expensive. NASA spent more than $1 billion on the OSIRIS-REx mission<\/a> that collected 121 of the 127 grams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That sample was pulled from the asteroid Bennu and mostly contained water-rich clay minerals, but even if it had been pure rhodium \u2014 the most expensive PGM \u2014 it would only be valued at about $24,000. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
NASA \/ James Tralie<\/figcaption>
Jason Dworkin, project scientist for NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, holding a vial that contains part of the sample from asteroid Bennu\n<\/div><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

An asteroid mining company is going to need to be able to collect much more material, much more cheaply in order to make a profit, but no private company has ever even reached<\/em> an asteroid, let alone collected a sample from it \u2014 and this isn\u2019t for lack of trying. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A decade ago, two promising startups, Planetary Resources Inc. (PRI)<\/a> and Deep Space Industries<\/a>, seemed well-positioned to be the first to mine a space rock, only to both fold<\/a> before launching any missions to asteroids. AstroForge, meanwhile, has successfully launched two spacecraft since its founding in 2022, but neither mission went as planned. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first, Brokkr-1, launched via a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in April 2023. It was supposed to demonstrate AstroForge\u2019s refinery technology, but the company lost contact with the spacecraft before it could get that far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its second mission, Odin, was supposed to do a flyby of a metal asteroid so that it could take images for a future mining mission, but AstroForge lost contact with that probe about 20 hours after its March 2025 deployment via a Falcon 9, bringing the mission to an early end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, these setbacks aren\u2019t stopping the startup from moving forward with its third mission, Vestri, which is set to launch in 2026. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

This is an interesting company. I\u2019ve analyzed asteroid mining business cases and I am totally convinced there is a path to success with giant profit.

Short thread \ud83e\uddf5 \/1 https:\/\/t.co\/sL5rqn1dHQ<\/a><\/p>— Phil Metzger (@DrPhiltill) January 21, 2025<\/a><\/blockquote>