AstroForge, a startup developing asteroid mining technology, is turning to artificial intelligence to overcome the operational limits that constrained its earlier deep space missions. The company has built an in-house autonomous control stack called Solo based on transformer models, aiming to give spacecraft the ability to solve problems without relying on large ground teams. With $56 million in venture funding and lessons from two imperfect prototypes, AstroForge now plans to fly a fully autonomous spacecraft in 2027.
Why Spacecraft Autonomy Matters
Traditional NASA missions like Osiris-Rex rely on large teams of flight controllers, with about 100 operators per eight-hour shift when the spacecraft reached an asteroid in 2018. Such resources are not available to startups, which pushed AstroForge to consider a different model for deep space operations. The company designed Solo to place more intelligence directly onboard its spacecraft rather than depending on constant ground intervention.
Learning from Early Setbacks
AstroForge was founded in 2022 and has launched two prototype spacecraft, but both suffered anomalies that prevented them from meeting most mission objectives. In 2025, the Odin spacecraft traveled into deep space, yet the company struggled to communicate with it because few Earth-based antennas are large enough for such distances. The experience raised a central question about whether enough onboard intelligence could help a spacecraft recover on its own.
Inside the Solo Architecture
Solo combines traditional control algorithms, models trained on test data for subsystems such as power generation and navigation, and an overall intelligence layer trained on about 2,500 spacecraft sensors. Armand Awad, head of flight software, said the company is leveraging advances in transformer models driven by frontier laboratories. In theory, the onboard agent could detect a lost position, correlate a power anomaly to a star tracker issue, and attempt a fix such as turning the component off and on.
The Case for Onboard Intelligence
Matthew Gialich, AstroForge's co-founder and chief executive, describes the approach as constrained autonomy at a very low sensor input level rather than general autonomy. He said building a private ground network with five dishes around the world would cost around $200 million, while an onboard model could remove that requirement. This trade-off is central to the company's strategy for smaller deep space missions.
Upcoming Missions and the Road to 2027
AstroForge's third vehicle, DeepSpace-2, is set to launch alongside Intuitive Machines' third moon mission by the end of 2026. Solo will fly in shadow mode during that mission so engineers can assess its performance before the fully autonomous flight. The first autonomous mission, called Autonomy-1, is planned for 2027 on the first rocket launched by Stock Space and will be supported by NASA while gathering scientific data about the Sun.
Gialich said he does not plan to fly radios that can receive from Earth on Autonomy-1, although he expects his team may talk him into including them by launch. The company wants to go all in on spacecraft autonomy, a stance that would mark a significant departure from standard mission design. Most current spacecraft autonomy still relies on traditional control algorithms because neural networks are often viewed as unreliable for critical operations.
AstroForge's push toward autonomous deep space operations reflects a broader shift in how private space companies may handle complexity without massive ground infrastructure. If Solo succeeds, it could demonstrate that transformer-based models can manage constrained spacecraft tasks with limited sensor input. The upcoming DeepSpace-2 and Autonomy-1 missions will test whether this artificial intelligence driven approach can turn early setbacks into a viable path for asteroid mining and beyond.