Its all-or-nothing, lower-cost approach may help push asteroid mining closer to reality. A SpaceX rocket launched the Pysche spacecraft from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on October 13, 2023.

AstroForge has announced an ambitious commercial mission to observe a distant asteroid—an important step for the California startup as it strives to become the world’s first deep space mining ...

Even if asteroid mining isn’t possible today, or done by AstroForge, it may become reality for one entity or another down the road. “To me, it is about pushing humans forward,” he said.

AstroForge is betting that asteroid mining will happen soon enough that it doesn’t need gin. Some of the economics are, in fact, better than they were in the 2010s.

The dream of mining metals in deep space crashed and burned in the 2010s. AstroForge’s Odin mission to survey a potentially metallic asteroid is packed and ready to lift off.

By using asteroid mining, companies like AstroForge hope to be able to tap into the vast resources just waiting in space. It, of course, raises a ton of other questions about whether or not we ...

While asteroid mining is already being undertaken, the first mission didn't exactly go off without a hitch. Here's what happened after it left earth.

Asteroid mining could become a lucrative business, with materials found on a single asteroid adding up to trillions of dollars in possible profit.The idea has been around for decades, although it ...

Bucket wheel designs seem to be gaining popularity in space mining more generally lately. NASA's ISRU Pilot Excavator (IPEx) uses a similar design and has been advanced to Technology Readiness ...

Asteroid-mining startup AstroForge plans to launch its third mission, which will land on a metallic space rock, in 2025. Skip to main content Open menu Close menu ...

Asteroid mining is not a far-flung idea, Dano believes. "There are currently millions of asteroids in our solar system, and about 2 million of them are larger than 1 kilometer.