AstroForge is a California asteroid-mining startup founded in 2022 that targets metallic (M-type) asteroids for platinum-group-metal extraction

AstroForge is the real-world referent motivating the PGM-market modelling of Nachtrieb and Smith (claim-asteroid-pgm-price-holds-then-collapses). It is a California company founded in 2022 (Wikipedia: January 10, 2022, Huntington Beach) pursuing extraction of platinum-group metals from metallic (M-type) asteroids — the iron-nickel-metal class expected to be PGM-rich. Per the paper's own description — drawn from AstroForge's website and podcast, i.e. company self-description — the mining architecture is magnetic anchoring (landing legs with switchable clamping magnets), high-power-laser vaporization of surface regolith into a collection system, and in-situ refining that separates PGMs from iron-nickel slag to roughly 60% purity before only the concentrate returns to Earth. A mission, DeepSpace-2, is described by the paper as planned for 2026 (Wikipedia: with Intuitive Machines' IM-3, "second half of 2026"); the capture's more specific "Q4 2026" has no located source.

The founding facts (California, 2022, M-type target for PGM) are uncontested history and acceptable on Tier 3 sourcing. Two further details do not clear their sourcing floor on this evidence and are flagged: the extraction method is a technical-mechanism claim resting on company self-description relayed by the paper, and the DeepSpace-2 launch window is a specific forward-looking date — both require a Tier 1–2 primary (company filing, official site, or mission documentation).

[unverified-mechanism / unverified-quant — needs primary] on the extraction method and the precise mission date. Verification routed to question-verify-astroforge-mission-and-extraction-method.

Update 2026-07-22: both flags are now substantially resolved by a dedicated verification capture. The mission date clears cleanly — AstroForge's own official mission page gives "the fourth quarter of 2026," Tier 1: see claim-astroforge-deepspace-2-launch-q4-2026. The mechanism clears with a caveat: AstroForge's own December 2023 congressional testimony (Tier 1) describes the company's general mining approach as electromagnetic docking, laser ablation, mass-spectrometry separation, and magnetic collection — see claim-astroforge-2023-testimony-describes-mining-mechanism — but that testimony predates DeepSpace-2 by name and describes the company's approach generally, not this mission's hardware; DeepSpace-2 itself is now confirmed camera-only, no mining hardware aboard: claim-astroforge-deepspace-2-payload-is-camera-only. This note's own mechanism summary above (magnetic anchoring, laser vaporization, refining to ~60% purity) was itself a paraphrase relayed through the arXiv paper, not the company's own words — the three linked notes now carry the primary-sourced versions; this note is left otherwise as-is rather than rewritten, as an honest record of what the original 2026-07-09 capture found.