Odin Asteroid Prospecting Spacecraft

Odin is AstroForge’s first commercial spacecraft and the first commercial mission designed to prospect a specific asteroid for mining viability. Launched January 2024 on SpaceX Transporter-10 as a rideshare CubeSat, Odin then departed Earth orbit to demonstrate deep-space navigation and rendezvous capabilities before proceeding to its target near-Earth asteroid for close flyby observation.

Odin’s instruments include cameras and spectrometers to characterize the asteroid’s surface composition, particularly searching for elevated concentrations of platinum group metals (PGMs) — ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, osmium, iridium, and platinum. PGMs are extremely rare on Earth’s surface (asteroid 16 Psyche alone is estimated to contain more iron, nickel, and precious metals than the entire human economy has ever processed), making asteroid mining economically compelling despite the enormous engineering challenge.

AstroForge was founded in 2022 by Matt Gialich (former Amazon Aerospace) and Jose Acain, and is backed by HorizonX Ventures (Boeing), Initialized Capital, and others. The company’s model is to identify high-PGM-concentration asteroids, extract ore in space, and return refined material to Earth — targeting a scenario where the total market value of materials from a single asteroid exceeds the cost of the entire mission.