Asteroid exploration probably failed - Odin probe staggers through space

Asteroid mining will have to wait: Californian space startup AstroForge has lost contact with Odin. The probe was supposed to explore the asteroid 2022 OB5.

"Right now, Odin is still out there, and we're still trying to talk to it," writes AstroForge CEO Matt Gialich in a blog post. AstroForge assumes that Odin is still on the right course, but that it is lurching very slowly.

AstroForge has had problems with the ground stations, Gialich said in a video on the social media platform X. The communication problems in the early stages of the mission had probably prevented the company from intervening. The last signal from Odin was received about 21 hours after the mission was launched, Gialich said.

Odin launched with Athena

Odin was launched aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on February 26, together with the Athena lunar lander. The probe was to explore an asteroid to find out whether it was worth mining raw materials there. To do this, Odin was to fly past the celestial body at a short distance and take high-resolution images.

The target was the asteroid 2022 OB5, which Odin was to reach in December. 2022 OB5 is presumably an M-class asteroid, which contains large quantities of metal, including iron and nickel, but also platinum group metals such as platinum, ruthenium and iridium.

AstroForge does not want to give up on its probe quite yet. However, hopes of continuing the mission are fading, said Gialich in the video on X. However, this does not mean the end of AstroForge's ambitions: "Regardless of what comes out of Odin and whether or not we ever speak to Odin again, the findings will be incorporated into the next mission. We'll see you again in a year or so when we start a new attempt."

AstroForge was founded in 2022 and aims to become the first company to mine on an asteroid. Odin was built in just ten months.

(wpl)