In recent days, the Israel Prize (Monday) has been awarded to Ofek satellites in Israel. While we celebrate yesterday’s technologies, in the US start-ups are already sending spacecraft to mine asteroids from space.
The field of asteroid mineral mining is not new. In Hollywood, science fiction movies began to deal with the subject decades ago and now science fiction is coming to an engineering realization. AstroForge, a company founded by SpaceX, Virgin Orbit and Galactic, raised funds and ordered a launch on a SpaceX launcher.
‘The company will start with platinum group metals, which are used in everything from catalytic converters in cars to electronics. Writes in a business insider publication. “Metallic asteroids contain mainly iron and nickel, but some also contain platinum, gold and cobalt,” the publication said.
The transition to a green economy has caused demand for certain metals to take off. Cobalt, for example, is mainly used in lithium-ion batteries found in electric vehicles.
The start-up, founded in January, is backed by the prestigious Y Combinator accelerator, which has helped ventures that include Reddit, Airbnb and Stripe. AstroForge recently raised $ 13 million in initial financing from venture capital firm Initialized Capital.