AstroForge

NASA went to asteroid Bennu expecting sand but instead it was all boulders. AstroForge employee Andy Ryan was formerly the Lead Scientist on OSIRIS-REx's sample physical and thermal analysis working group. Their paper just dropped. We talk about it here: apple.co/40550YW

We strive to always test as we intend to fly. This enables us to derisk components and subsystems before launch. To that end, here is a DeepSpace-2 test article in a vacuum chamber getting prepared for a hotfire thruster test under the control of our full avionics suite.

Fresh science is the best science. Also, fun fact: Andrew Ryan, who lead OSIRIS-REx's sample physical and thermal analysis working group joined AstroForge a few months ago after completing this study!

What's missing today is exactly what was missing in 1850: the extraction tech. Aluminum did not change the world because someone found more of it. It changed the world because someone built a better way to get it out. The Aluminum of the future just has a different name: Platinum.

Meanwhile, these same critical metals exist in staggering concentrations inside near-Earth asteroids, the exposed cores of ancient planetesimals, made primarily of iron, nickel, and platinum group metals.

The past is a great predictor of the future. When we look back, some of the greatest technical advancements of our time are based on a simple change in the availability of key raw materials. Take for example, the Washington Monument; it's capped with aluminum. Not because it looked cool or was in some way a utilitarian choice, but because in 1884, aluminum was more precious than gold.

57 years ago today, Apollo 9 splashed down after testing the Lunar Module in Earth orbit. Test, learn, *then* land. That’s NASA’s playbook, and it’s @AstroForge’s playbook too.

When test facility availability becomes a bottleneck, what do you do? Build your own test facility! We built an anechoic chamber in our factory to enable a rapidly iterative test campaign of our entire RF stack. Roid Rage Episode 54 is out now! Tune in: apple.co/40550YW

Unboxing time! Our new Thermal Vacuum Chamber continues our recent push to expand our in-house testing capabilities. In this chamber, we'll be able to test fire our electric trusters to verify their performance with our hardware and software.

All of our missions start with a Trans Lunar Injection, and we're primarily limited by the cadence of launches with a TLI... just saying.

We think so too. Sign us up!

@SciGuySpace Plenty of time, as far was we're concerned.

A great question. Isaacman has talked about maximizing science and other exploration goals wherever possible. This will be an interesting test case. Unfortunately ~18 months between now and a potential launch date does not leave much time for scientific payloads.

Look around you. The modern world depends on a constant stream of raw materials to function. It’s not just the ones you might think of like oil and iron either. It’s critical minerals that underpin our society like copper, platinum, and lithium. We’ve utilized Earth’s abundance to our great advantage; we’ve taught sand to think, we’ve created metallic alloys that can withstand the punishing heat inside power generating turbines, and we have even smashed atoms together to create and study exotic matter. Through it all, it remains true that continued progress is not assured, though it is often assumed. However, this assumption ignores several key facts. -Ore quality is decreasing; all the easy to get “good stuff” is long gone and we’re not going to suddenly find more. We know what’s out there and we know it’s not enough. -There are a large amount of resources available in Earth's crust, but very little ore. To be clear, the distinction is important. Ore is: economically valuable material that you can actually access and dig up. -We have to continually dig deeper to chase the ore deposits that we have. With the increased depth comes increased cost and danger to workers to the point that mining there becomes untenable. -Shifting geopolitical sands and geological concentrations mean that countries without an indigenous source of the materials they need can be cut off from their supply with little or no warning. -We get exactly one Planet Earth, and we should probably take good care of it. As we dig deeper to get at, and use ever more toxic chemicals and processes to refine natural resources, the environmental costs rise along with the monetary ones. We believe it is our destiny to expand into the solar system and eventually the stars, but we know that humanity is already running up against material constraints on this journey. To sustain an ever growing population, to continue to feed the titans of industry, to ensure a better life for those that come after us, we must look up. We can not continue to tear up our planet to fuel the march of progress, not just because it’s foolish, but also because the planet simply can’t provide what will be needed. Mining asteroids is an immensely challenging problem but it is inevitable and it’s going to happen in our lifetimes. We’re building a spacecraft assembly line, we’re specializing in rapid response missions, and we’ve created a new precision mining approach to resource extraction. Join us as we forge a new path.

"Do you want to really, really damage the environment? Or do you want no technology? Those are your two options right now. If we go to space to mine, we have a third option." Roid Rage Episode 53 is out now! Tune in: apple.co/40550YW

Our new in-house anechoic chamber is coming together, allowing us to further shrink the build-test-iterate cycle. By placing a DeepSpace-2 test article in this chamber we are able to simulate the in-space environment our radios will have to operate in.