AstroForge’s DeepSpace-2 spacecraft with its solar arrays deployed. Credit: AstroForge
WASHINGTON — Asteroid mining startup AstroForge has completed assembly of its latest spacecraft for launch later this year, incorporating lessons from a failed mission last year.
The company announced June 4 that it finished assembly of its DeepSpace-2 spacecraft, which will now undergo environmental testing. The spacecraft is scheduled to launch late this year as a rideshare payload on a Falcon 9 rocket carrying Intuitive Machines’ IM-3 lunar lander mission.
DeepSpace-2 will fly by a near Earth asteroid, although the company said the destination will depend on when the mission launches.
“We have a series of asteroids that, depending on the day of launch, we will go to,” Matt Gialich, chief executive of AstroForge, said in an interview. “We will pick a target probably a couple days before launch, once we’re on the pad.”
