AstroForge

AstroForge is a commercial space startup that plans to mine asteroids. Its first target is platinum group metals, and it also names other critical minerals. The company has its headquarters in Seal Beach. It says it builds low cost spacecraft that can find and mine asteroids in deep space.

The site gives several reasons for the plan. It says earth based mining of these metals has margins around 7 percent, while asteroid mining could reach about 85 percent. It says one asteroid could supply Earth for 200 years and that about 300,000 metal rich asteroids are within reach.

The second mission is DeepSpace-2. The site calls it a new kind of interplanetary spacecraft that is low cost, autonomous and built to fly often. It is due to travel millions of kilometers to meet a near Earth asteroid, and the site calls it the first commercial rendezvous with a body outside the planetary gravity well. The homepage says the mission launches in 2027. The company also works on refining materials in space.

The team has people from SpaceX, NASA JPL, Rocket Lab, Virgin Orbit, Virgin Galactic and Terran Orbital. Matt Gialich is CEO and co-founder, Robyn Ringuette is president and Chapman Snowden is chief operating officer.

The contact page welcomes payload partners, partnership requests and general questions. The company also runs a newsletter with over 2,000 subscribers and a podcast called Roid Rage.