AstroForge

Flight software is an entirely different beast from the software most people interact with everyday. On this week's episode of Roid Rage, Jack is joined by Matt and Kieran, one of our flight software engineers, to explain what it means to write software that directly interacts with hardware. "You're directly interacting with hardware and you have to understand what your software is doing with the hardware," Kieran explains. "You have to understand how the memory works, how the data flows through the processor, how communication protocols work ... You're having tangible effects on the world with every line of code that you write." Listen: https://lnkd.in/gqvCHUtb Watch: https://lnkd.in/g6u6f-MX

One day and 350+ pages later, we have some more thoughts on the SpaceX S-1. SpaceX permanently changed the course of human history when it pioneered rocket reusability. That enabled spacecraft operators to do more for people on Earth: low-cost satellite broadband, wildfire detection, hi-res imaging for defense, better navigation, and more. We are looking to the next phase of the space economy. That phase is industrial. Data centers on orbit. In-space manufacturing. Logistics. And yes, resources from beyond Earth orbit. We welcome SpaceX's message to the public markets: off-world resources are no longer science fiction. But we will not industrialize deep space with once-a-decade, billion-dollar missions, nor by waiting for someone else to go first. Instead, we will get there this decade, with rapidly iterated lower-cost systems that we fly and learn from, and fly again. That is how we will win at AstroForge: by iterating quickly on the full stack technical stack – prospecting, rendezvous, landing, extracting, processing, and material return – for the benefit of Earth.

We've been granted our FCC license for DeepSpace-2! This makes us not only the first, but also second company ever to be granted FCC authorization for a deep space mission outside a federal program. We're also the first ever to do it while not using NASA's Deep Space Network.

We found the first exoplanet in 1992. Today, we know about over 6,500. 6,500 other worlds. Everywhere we look in the universe, we find them. The greatest minds in the world should be figuring out how to get to them.

Thermal is such a pain in the ass. We have to assemble our base plate in a temperature-controlled room in order to meet the tolerance needed for the separation system. The details on spacecraft are infinite.

Picking the right asteroid is half the problem. We use multiple ground-based telescopes to conduct astrometry and spectroscopy on prospective asteroid targets so we can characterize their orbits and composition long before we ever commit a spacecraft to one. The Lowell Discovery Telescope (LDT) in Happy Jack, AZ is one such telescope. It sports a 4.3-meter primary mirror Ritchey-Chrétien design with a swiss army knife collection of 5 rapidly-interchangeable instruments, making it one of the most capable telescopes in the continental US for solar system science.

🚀 New ProtoPod episode! AstroForge’s Ashton Meginnis joined us to talk about asteroid mining, rapid spacecraft iteration, and why moving fast matters in aerospace engineering. An awesome conversation that we highly recommend checking out.

AstroForge is hiring a Business Development Intern for Summer 2026! If you’re passionate about exploring deep space and have a sharp eye for markets, strategy, and commercialization, come help us build the future of asteroid mining. Apply here: https://lnkd.in/g6a9y2YU

Robyn and Ashton break down our recent successful hot-fire test campaign with our Hall-effect thrusters. We talk about what went right, what went wrong, and why you always want to "test as you fly." Listen to the full episode here: apple.co/40550YW