The two companies managed to raise a total of USD 25 million for space development. The first of them, Lunar Outpost, is developing moon rovers. Second, AstroForge is going to extract minerals from asteroids.
Startups raised money for space projects
Despite concerns about the state of the space market, startups continue to raise money for new missions. One of them, Lunar Outpost, was able to raise USD 12 million to develop rovers for lunar exploration.
The company is developing its Mobile Autonomous Prospecting Platform (MAPP) bike, which should fly to the Moon in 2023. The second lunar rover will go to our moon in 2024. Both of them will be sent to the site using Intuitive Machines IM-2 landing modules.
The MAPP lunar rovers will be relatively small research vehicles weighing 10-20 kilograms each. However, Lunar Outpost is going to build a more serious device weighing 100-200 kilograms. It is expected to be ready in 2023.
Collecting money turned out to be a difficult task for the company. In addition to attracting venture capitalists, they had to earn money themselves. Lunar Outpost has developed a line of Canary environmental monitoring equipment and successfully sells it. In addition, they managed to get funding from NASA.
AstroForge will extract minerals from asteroids
The second company, which recently managed to raise a considerable amount of funds, is called AstroForge. This startup is going to extract minerals from asteroids. Previously, such projects have already been launched more than once, but they have not gone beyond the Earth’s orbit or for initial funding.
However, AstroForge offers a new approach. Already in 2023, they are going to launch a cube satellite that will simulate an asteroid. The next unit of the company will try to sit on it and drill the material and extract platinum group metals from it.
As for the first real mission, the company is going to implement it in five years. AstroForge took into account the experience of its predecessors. The collected USD 13 million will be spent on the creation of a small and inexpensive device.
According to spacenews.com
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