This week on Pathfinder, we welcome back Matt Gialich, cofounder and CEO of AstroForge, to discuss the company’s plans to mine platinum group metals from near-Earth asteroids and its recent Series A funding.

In this episode, Matt provides updates on AstroForge’s upcoming missions, the challenges of developing a cost-effective method for extracting and refining space resources, and how the company is addressing the technical complexities of deep space exploration. He also delves into the specifics of the $40 million Series A round, which will support AstroForge's next two missions, and how the company is balancing risk with innovation to lower costs.

In addition, we cover:

AstroForge’s approach to refining metals in space and their proprietary low-power refinery
The economics of the asteroid mining market
Lessons learned from previous mining efforts
The importance of scalability and mission flexibility
The regulatory landscape and its evolution as the industry grows

And much more…

• Chapters •

00:00 - Intro

00:48 - Matt's background and AstroForge

01:52 - Platinum group metals and why we need to mine them

04:14 - Beyond just platinum mining

08:27 - Bird scooters to JPL

11:40 - What makes space mining companies fail and who are AstroForge's current competitors?

15:37 - How large is the PGM market today?

18:34 - Developments at AstroForge since July 2023

21:46 - Plan for Mission 2

23:32 - How do you choose (and image) an asteroid?

27:19 - What does the architecture of the end system look like

28:13 - Materials processing

28:51 - Technical challenges

31:08 - Cost vs Risk

36:32 - State of space mining regulation and how it will evolve

38:25 - How other countries are viewing space mining

44:18 - Plans with Series A proceeds

45:03 - Common investor misconceptions

48:53 - Government contracts

50:10 - Long- term vision

51:20 - Are we ready for a killer asteroid?

53:49 - Who's playing Matt in the movie about AstroForge?

• Show notes •

AstroForge’s website — https://www.astroforge.com/

Matt’s socials — https://twitter.com/MattGialich

Mo's socials — https://twitter.com/itsmoislam

Payload’s socials — https://twitter.com/payloadspace / https://www.linkedin.com/company/payloadspace

Pathfinder archive — Watch: https://www.youtube.com/@payloadspace

Pathfinder archive — Listen: https://pod.payloadspace.com/episodes

• About us •

Pathfinder is brought to you by Payload, a modern space media brand built from the ground up for a new age of space exploration and commercialization. We deliver need-to-know news and insights daily to 19,000+ commercial, civil, and military space leaders. Payload is read by decision-makers at every leading new space company, along with c-suite leaders at all of the aerospace & defense primes. We’re also read on Capitol Hill, in the Pentagon, and at space agencies around the world.

Payload began as a weekly email sent to a few friends and coworkers. Today, we’re a team distributed across four time zones and two continents, publishing five media properties across multiple platforms:

1) Payload, our flagship daily newsletter, sends M-F @ 9am Eastern

2) Pathfinder publishes weekly on Tuesday mornings (pod.payloadspace.com)

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4) Payload Research, our weekly research and analysis piece, comes out on Wednesdays

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Dean Anthony Brink, “Japanese Poetry and its Publics: From Colonial Taiwan to Fukushima” (Routledge, 2018)