Last Friday, Feb. 28, was the only time I mentioned an interesting sounding mission from a company called AstroForge a company who plainly says on the front page of that website, “We Mine Asteroids.” It was the world's first private mission to an asteroid to investigate some ideas for autonomous mining in deep space.
That first link has one that goes to their website and talks about troubles with the probe. Today we learned it's as good as dead.
California startup AstroForge launched its Odin spacecraft on Feb. 26, on the same SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that sent Intuitive Machines' IM-2 mission toward the moon. Odin ran into trouble just a few hours later, however, and AstroForge has pretty much given up hope of recovering the 265-pound (120-kilogram) probe.
"The chance of talking with Odin is minimal, as at this point, the accuracy of its position is becoming an issue," the company wrote in an update today (March 6).
AstroForge built Odin in less than 10 months, spending just $3.5 million to do so. That's not just a tiny fraction of what a similar government-funded space probe would cost, it's a small fraction of what just about every deep space probe costs.
AstroForge did something the majority of other small startups don't, and put up a summary page of the mission, "Odin't: A Complete Debrief of Our Deep Space Mission." It's not your typical small company posting. As I often do, I include an excerpt to whet your interest.
TL;DR
- We contacted Odin multiple times on its way to deep space.
- We learned a lot, and many of those changes will be implemented in our next mission, Vestri.
- The chance of talking with Odin is minimal, as at this point, the accuracy of its position is becoming an issue.
Mission Purpose & The Big Picture
We embarked on the Odin mission with a simple yet audacious goal: to push the boundaries of what a privately funded space company can achieve in deep space exploration. The primary objective was to identify whether our models had correctly located a metallic asteroid—one rich in platinum group metals.
But internally, this mission represented something more fundamental: a critical step in our roadmap toward building an actual asteroid mining vehicle.
As our CEO Matt Gialich put it: "We know how to build these craft. These have been built before. They just cost a billion fucking dollars. How do we do it for a fraction of the cost?"
What many don't realize is that 99% of our learnings happened before Odin ever reached the rocket. We learned invaluable lessons about spacecraft construction, wiring, and testing. And while we knew about some of the issues before launch, we made the bold decision to launch anyway—and that made all the difference.
"At the end of the day, like, you got to fucking show up and take a shot, right? You have to try."
Odin Post Separation. There's a tiny light-colored dot in that green circle; that seems to be Odin (Credit: Intuitive Machines)
It's an unfortunate conclusion to the February 26 mission that launched Odin, Athena, and Lunar TrailBlazer.
Thinking lately, just start putting people on the moon instead. Saying that in hopes SpaceX gets Super Heavy/Starship human rated soonest. Or use it as a mass cargo hauler, man rate Falcon Heavy, convert Dragon to deep space rated, put a landing stage where the trunk is, use larger capacity fuel tanks for the Draco thrusters, leave a return booster in moon orbit to get back. Meanwhile Starship drops lots of tonnage on the moon waiting for everyone.
ReplyDeleteMy thinking is, yeah sure you really need exploration, yet nothing beats a pair of Mark1 eyeballs snd hands with opposing thumbs. In the long run lot of money gets saved can be put into setting up shop.
Kind of good news, "...The spacecraft touched down on the Moon’s surface at 12:28:50 p.m. EST (1728:50 UTC), according to ham radio non-profit AMSAT-DL."
ReplyDeleteNothing else mentioned about the ham radio in the article.
-from:
https://spaceflightnow.com/2025/03/07/intuitive-machines-im-2-mission-ends-with-lander-on-its-side-on-the-moon/
AMSAT-DL (Germany) has monitored some of the non-Amateur Radio missions in the past. The frequencies used are near Amateur Radio microwave bands and so are easy to monitor. If the missions data format is known they can decode it.
DeleteCool beans, thanks. The world of hams is fascinating in every way to me.
Delete"AstroForge built Odin in less than 10 months, spending just $3.5 million to do so."
ReplyDeleteI'd love to see someone make a movie about this--but it would undoubtedly cost more and take longer to accomplish than the mission itself.
Oh, to be a 25 yr old engineer (or film maker, for that matter). These, in at least some ways, are the best of times.
Indeed, interesting times, a new frontier awaits!
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