AstroForge Announces DeepSpace2 Spacecraft - The First Commercially Viable Path to Deep Space

AstroForge, a deep-space mining company on a mission to extract valuable metals from asteroids - starting with PGMs, or platinum group metals, led by Matt Gialich and the team, has assembled the major flight hardware of DeepSpace-2 on its integration floor for the first time. 

Making Deep Space Access Routine.

After assembling the major flight hardware of its DeepSpace-2 spacecraft, the company is preparing for a fourth-quarter launch and the next phase of testing and refinement. The mission reflects a broader vision: making deep space exploration frequent, affordable, and commercially viable.

The company believes asteroids and other small bodies will play a central role in humanity’s expansion beyond Earth. While more than a million asteroids have been identified, only a small fraction have ever been visited, and just a handful have returned samples. Historically, deep-space missions have been limited to governments and national space agencies due to their high cost, long development timelines, and low-risk design requirements.

DeepSpace-2 represents an alternative approach built around rapid iteration, lower-cost spacecraft, and more frequent missions. The long-term goal is to create the infrastructure and operational experience needed to explore, characterize, and eventually utilize asteroid resources, helping lay the foundation for a future space-based industrial economy.

Building a Platform for Routine Deep-Space Missions.

DeepSpace-2 is designed to make deep-space exploration more affordable and repeatable. Launching later this year, the spacecraft will travel to a near-Earth asteroid to capture high-resolution imagery and gather data on its structure and composition.

Built on a modular, low-cost platform, the spacecraft combines deep-space capabilities such as electric propulsion, autonomous navigation, and precision maneuvering in a compact vehicle. The platform is intended to support future missions ranging from asteroid prospecting and scientific research to space domain awareness and planetary defense.

Unlocking a New Era of Deep-Space Operations.

DeepSpace-2 is designed to make asteroid missions routine rather than rare, opening the door to more affordable planetary defense, scientific research, and resource exploration across the Solar System.

A low-cost, repeatable spacecraft platform could enable more frequent asteroid characterization missions, expand access for researchers, and accelerate scientific discovery beyond Earth orbit. Longer term, it could also support the exploration of asteroid resources, which may become increasingly important for advanced manufacturing, computing, and industrial development.

The broader vision is to transform deep-space missions from occasional government-led projects into a scalable commercial capability, enabling humanity to operate throughout the Solar System with greater speed, frequency, and flexibility.