The Leaders in Asteroid Mining

Who's Currently Leading the Charge

Looking further into these major players, we'll look first at AstroForge. This startup based out of Huntington Beach California founded by Jose Acain and Matt Gialich, was founded in 2022 and has already scaled to 20 employees. They have been simulating their technologies they intend to send into space in their lab which has space like conditions such as zero gravity. These technologies currently are miniature satellites with refinery systems that can identify and sort the types of metals the satellites will be harvesting on asteroids. This miniature satellite was sent into space on mission Brokkr - 1 and the mission had its struggles and successes. AstroForge struggled initially to communicate with their satellite among the many other satellites orbiting Earth, however once this communication was established, initial steps for the mission were completed being solar panel deployment and refinery practice with demo materials (Gialich). These are all strong indicators for success for AstroForge's next satellite mission, which they are calling mission 2, which will do a flyby of their target asteroid, taking many high-resolution photos. The satellite will take many years to arrive at an asteroid, at least 4-5 depending on which asteroid becomes their target asteroid. NASA already has a bit of a head start in this regard with their mission to Psyche. 

NASA launched Psyche in October of 2023, a satellite with the mission to study the asteroid 16 Psyche. This asteroid is thought to be the remnant of a planet's core which underwent the process of differentiation yet was still ejected into space. From this mission, more specific questions about Psyche seek to be answered such as whether it is really part of a planetary core or some other unmelted material, the relative age of the surface features, and whether the elemental composition of the elements we think are present match how they are on Earth. These questions are yet to be answered, as this mission will not arrive until 2029. The journey to Psyche gives an idea of how far away the asteroid belt truly is, as it takes 6 years for a spacecraft to arrive there, let alone return. While NASA has launched their mission to Psyche and is now waiting for arrival of the satellite, other world powers have stated their intentions to launch similar missions. China has vowed to launch by 2025, and the United Arab Emirates have as well by 2028 (Gunia). The number of interested parties on capitalizing on asteroid mining is only growing as more satellites get off the ground and into space, on their journeys to the asteroid belt. 

Rendering of Psyche, with NASA's satellite approaching the metallic asteroid. Fast Facts: NASA’s Psyche Mission (scitechdaily.com) 

 These missions, will provide invaluable insights into M type asteroid composition as we can study and take samples of Psyche. This mission will both let us learn more about the viability of harvesting metals from asteroids, but also about planetary formation as we can examine this relic of planetary composition from 3-4 billion years ago. Through these findings, we can better understand the early history of our solar system, and see how it has evolved into what it is today.