First-Ever Asteroid Mining Mission Loses Contact With Earth

Last week, California-based space company AstroForge launched what it claimed was the first "commercial deep space mission in history." The company's plan was to send its washing machine-sized spacecraft, dubbed Odin, to visit an asteroid millions of miles from Earth and scout it as a potential mining site. But mere hours after the spacecraft lifted off atop a SpaceX rocket last week — alongside Intuitive Machines' Athena lunar lander — the AstroForge team encountered issues while trying to communicate with the probe. Then, less than 24 hours following launch, the team lost contact entirely. "I think we all know the hope is fading as we continue the mission," AstroForge founder Matt Gialich admitted in an update on X-formerly-Twitter over the weekend, as flagged by Space.com. "So we're going to keep our head up. We're going to keep trying over the weekend, and we'll see how far we get." A number of space companies have raised huge amounts of funds with the promise of turning erran ... Read full article.