AstroForge
Mining asteroids for rare-earth metals using autonomous spacecraft.
Website: https://www.astroforge.com/
Cover Block
Public sources
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Company | AstroForge |
| Tagline | Mining asteroids for rare-earth metals using autonomous spacecraft. |
| Headquarters | Seal Beach, California [Y Combinator, Winter 2022] |
| Founded | 2021 [Y Combinator, Winter 2022] |
| Stage | Seed [TechCrunch, May 2022] |
| Business model | Other |
| Industry | Deeptech |
| Technology | Space |
| Geography | North America |
| Growth profile | Venture Scale |
| Founding team | Co-Founders (2), Matt Gialich and José Acain [Y Combinator, Winter 2022] |
| Funding label | $50M+ [TechCrunch, September 2026] |
| Total disclosed | Approximately $56 million [TechCrunch, September 2026] |
Links
Public sources
- Website: https://www.astroforge.io
Executive Summary
PUBLIC AstroForge is building spacecraft intended to prospect and eventually extract platinum group and other high value metals from near-Earth asteroids, and it merits investor attention now because the company has moved from concept-stage narrative into funded flight-testing, with $55 million to $56 million in disclosed capital and multiple on-orbit demonstrations already behind it [TechCrunch, September 2026] [Dealroom.co] [SpaceNews]. Founded in 2021 by Matt Gialich and José Acain, the company emerged from Y Combinator's Winter 2022 batch with a plainly ambitious thesis: use small, lower-cost spacecraft to make asteroid resource extraction economically plausible rather than waiting for a full-scale national program [Y Combinator, Winter 2022] [TechCrunch, May 2022].
The product stack appears to have two layers: near-term demonstration spacecraft such as Brokkr-1 and Odin, and a longer-term autonomy layer called Solo, which TechCrunch described as an internally built transformer-based spacecraft-control system intended to reduce reliance on constant human command loops [TechCrunch, January 2023] [TechCrunch, September 2026] [Technology Org, September 2026]. That combination is the main differentiator visible in public sources, but it also concentrates technical risk, since public reporting indicates AstroForge's two prototype spacecraft suffered anomalies that prevented most mission objectives from being achieved [TechCrunch, September 2026] [Superpower Daily] [AI Chat Daily].
On team quality, the public record is directionally supportive even if unevenly sourced: Gialich is identified as AstroForge's CEO by Bloomberg, while multiple sources tie him to Virgin Orbit or Virgin Galactic and Acain to prior engineering work at SpaceX, with Y Combinator framing both founders as having more than a decade of aerospace experience across NASA, SpaceX, and Virgin Orbit [Bloomberg] [Business Insider Africa] [Y Combinator, Winter 2022]. Capital formation also looks stronger than is typical for a frontier-space startup at this age, with TechCrunch reporting a $13 million seed in 2022 and several later sources converging on a 2024 Series A of about $40 million led by Nova Threshold, bringing total disclosed funding to roughly $55 million, while TechCrunch later cited $56 million overall [TechCrunch, May 2022] [Dealroom.co] [Tracxn] [TechCrunch, September 2026].
The commercial model is still best understood as venture-backed deeptech development rather than a proven revenue engine, since public materials emphasize spacecraft development and in-space refining milestones more than contracted demand or unit economics [Y Combinator, Winter 2022] [TechCrunch, January 2023]. Over the next 12 to 18 months, the key public markers to watch are whether AstroForge can convert redesigned spacecraft into cleaner mission execution, validate autonomy claims around Solo in flight, and show that its asteroid-prospecting path is becoming more repeatable rather than merely more ambitious [SpaceNews] [Aerospace America] [TechCrunch, September 2026].
Lightly corroborated -- Core company, founder, accelerator, and funding facts are corroborated by multiple public sources, but several product and mission details remain partly dependent on company-linked or single-source reporting.
Taxonomy Snapshot
| Axis | Value |
|---|---|
| Stage | Seed |
| Business Model | Other |
| Industry / Vertical | Deeptech |
| Technology Type | Space |
| Geography | North America |
| Growth Profile | Venture Scale |
| Founding Team | Co-Founders (2) |
| Funding | $50M+ total disclosed, approximately $56,000,000 [TechCrunch, September 2026] |
How the Company Got Here
PUBLIC
AstroForge traces to a 2021 founding and an unusually ambitious premise: build spacecraft that can find, approach, and eventually process asteroid material rather than expand terrestrial mining capacity [Y Combinator, Winter 2022]. Public source material places the company in Seal Beach, California, and identifies Matt Gialich and Jose Acain as co-founders [Y Combinator, Winter 2022]. The public record is clearer on the mission than on the legal shell, with available company profile sources describing the business in plain terms as an asteroid-mining startup developing small exploration and mining satellites [Y Combinator, Winter 2022].
The milestone trail is still early, but it is legible. Y Combinator lists AstroForge in its Winter 2022 batch [Y Combinator, Winter 2022]. Crunchbase describes one spacecraft effort as a 100 kilogram platform for deep-space flyby missions to capture high-resolution images and analyze asteroid composition, and separately describes a planned 2026 spacecraft intended to land on an asteroid and extract resources including platinum group metals [Crunchbase]. Taken together, the chronology suggests a company moving from concept formation in 2021 to accelerator-backed company building in 2022, then into a staged demonstration campaign built around increasingly complex spacecraft missions [Y Combinator, Winter 2022] [Crunchbase].
Lightly corroborated -- Confirmed in part by Y Combinator and Crunchbase; legal entity detail and some milestone descriptions remain only partially corroborated.
Product and Technology
MIXED
The product thesis is unusually concrete for a company this early: AstroForge is building spacecraft intended to test, characterize, and eventually extract metals from near-Earth asteroids, rather than selling a terrestrial software layer adjacent to space infrastructure [Y Combinator, Winter 2022] [SBIR] [TechCrunch, January 2023]. Public descriptions are consistent on the broad architecture. Y Combinator describes the company as developing small exploration and mining satellites to recover rare-earth metals from asteroids, while later coverage narrows the target to platinum group metals [Y Combinator, Winter 2022] [Apple Podcasts, 2026] [Shawn Ryan Show, retrieved 2026]. On the hardware side, reporting indicates AstroForge launched Brokkr-1 in April 2023 as a 6U CubeSat to test in-space metal refinement concepts, and launched Odin in February 2025 as a deeper-space prospecting mission, though company and press accounts also indicate communications and mission-execution problems on the prototypes [TechCrunch, January 2023] [Orbital Radar, retrieved 2026] [SpaceNews, retrieved 2026] [AstroForge, retrieved 2026] [TechCrunch, September 2026].
The software stack is becoming a larger part of the story, but the evidence base is thinner and readers should treat the technical detail conservatively. TechCrunch reported in September 2026 that AstroForge built an internal autonomous control system called Solo, described as a transformer-based model for operating spacecraft with less direct human command, and secondary coverage says that layer sits above conventional deterministic flight software and subsystem models trained on roughly 2,500 spacecraft sensors [TechCrunch, September 2026] [Technology Org, September 2026] [Progressive Robot, September 2026] [daily.dev, retrieved 2026]. AstroForge has also publicly signaled a next spacecraft, DeepSpace-2, with SpaceNews reporting that the vehicle had completed assembly for a later-2026 launch window and incorporated lessons from a prior failed mission [SpaceNews, retrieved 2026] [Aerospace America, retrieved 2026]. The practical read is that the company is not only attempting asteroid-resource extraction, but also trying to internalize a meaningful share of flight autonomy after two anomaly-affected missions, a choice that could improve iteration speed if it works, but remains technically unproven in public evidence [TechCrunch, September 2026].
Lightly corroborated -- Core product direction is corroborated across Y Combinator, TechCrunch, SpaceNews, and mission-tracking coverage, but important technical details around Solo and some spacecraft specifications remain company-driven or single-source.
Where the Demand Sits
PUBLIC
The market matters now because AstroForge is trying to turn a hard-to-access scientific frontier into a resource supply proposition at a moment when terrestrial critical-minerals security and in-space autonomy are both drawing more attention from governments and private capital, even if the underlying commercial market remains early and only partially defined [TechCrunch, September 2026] [TechCrunch, January 2023] [The New York Times, February 2025].
Public sources do not provide a clean, third-party TAM, SAM, or SOM for asteroid mining itself, and that absence is material. The evidence instead supports a narrower reading: AstroForge sits at the intersection of space infrastructure, autonomous spacecraft operations, and future platinum group metals supply, with the company publicly framed as targeting near-Earth asteroids for platinum group metals rather than a broad generic mining opportunity [SBIR] [Apple Podcasts, 2026] [Shawn Ryan Show, retrieved 2026]. That distinction matters because the investable question is less "how large is space" than whether a niche, high-value materials market can justify the cost and technical risk of prospecting, refining, and eventually transporting material from orbit or deep space [Bloomberg, December 2023] [The New York Times, December 2023].
Demand drivers are visible even through the sparse market data. TechCrunch's 2023 reporting showed AstroForge positioning its early in-space refinery test as a way to prove a new extraction pathway before full-scale mining, which implies that the first commercial gate is process validation rather than immediate commodity throughput [TechCrunch, January 2023]. By 2026, TechCrunch reported that the company had moved to an internally built autonomous control stack called Solo and planned a 2027 mission, a signal that spacecraft autonomy itself is becoming part of the market thesis because deep-space operations are communication-constrained and labor-intensive under conventional control models [TechCrunch, September 2026].
Adjacent markets are easier to observe than the end market AstroForge ultimately wants to serve. The nearest substitutes today are terrestrial mining and refining of platinum group metals and rare-earth inputs, while the nearest adjacent markets are small satellite manufacturing, on-orbit spacecraft operations, deep-space prospecting, and government-backed science missions that can subsidize technology maturation before purely commercial demand is proven [Y Combinator, Winter 2022] [TechCrunch, September 2026] [The New York Times, February 2025]. That mix cuts both ways: adjacency gives AstroForge more pathways to technical relevance, but it also means the company is competing for capital and talent against markets with shorter revenue cycles and clearer procurement structures [Bloomberg, December 2023].
Regulatory and macro forces look supportive in principle, but they do not remove execution risk. Coverage from The New York Times and Bloomberg points to a broader backdrop of strategic interest in critical minerals and the willingness of venture investors to fund frontier-space concepts despite long timelines [The New York Times, February 2025] [Bloomberg, December 2023]. At the same time, space missions remain exposed to launch cadence, mission assurance, export controls, and the basic reality that failed spacecraft can delay market creation by years, which is especially relevant given public reporting that AstroForge's two prototype spacecraft suffered anomalies that limited mission objectives [TechCrunch, September 2026].
| Market lens | Public evidence | Relevance to AstroForge |
|---|---|---|
| Asteroid mining | No third-party TAM located in cited public sources | Core target market remains conceptually large but commercially unbounded in the available evidence |
| Platinum group metals supply | AstroForge is described as targeting platinum group metals from near-Earth asteroids [Apple Podcasts, 2026] [SBIR] | Supports a high-value-per-kilogram commodity thesis rather than bulk materials |
| Space autonomy and operations | AstroForge developed Solo for autonomous spacecraft control and plans a 2027 mission [TechCrunch, September 2026] | Suggests autonomy is part of the enabling market, not just an internal tool |
| Deep-space missions and science partnerships | Public reporting ties the 2027 mission to Stoke Space and NASA-backed scientific work [TechCrunch, September 2026] | Indicates non-mining mission demand could help de-risk technology development |
The table underscores the central market problem: the enabling markets are observable, but the end-state asteroid-mining market is still being inferred from adjacent categories rather than measured directly. For investors, that shifts diligence away from top-down market sizing and toward mission economics, technical milestones, and whether autonomy creates a cost curve that terrestrial substitutes cannot easily match.
Lightly corroborated -- This section relies on named public reporting from TechCrunch, Bloomberg, and The New York Times, but no third-party market-sizing report for asteroid mining was identified in the cited materials.
Competitive Landscape
MIXED AstroForge is not competing in a crowded software lane so much as in a narrow stack of capital-intensive alternatives: terrestrial metal supply, conventional space operators, and a small set of asteroid-mining programs that remain more visible in concept than in disclosed execution [Y Combinator, Winter 2022] [TechCrunch, September 2026] [The New York Times, February 2025].
The segment map matters because AstroForge sits across three different comparison sets at once. Against terrestrial mining, the substitute is established supply with known processing economics, permitting pathways, and customer relationships, which sets a high bar for any off-world extraction thesis [Bloomberg, December 2023]. Against space incumbents, the closer comparison is not ore production but mission reliability: launch providers, satellite primes, and deep-space operators already sell around flight heritage, while AstroForge is still proving it can keep contact with spacecraft and complete in-space demonstrations [TechCrunch, September 2026] [The New York Times, February 2025]. The closest direct challengers are other asteroid-mining efforts, but the public record supplied here names them only indirectly as a category rather than by company, which itself says something about how early and fragmented the field remains [Bloomberg, December 2023] [The New York Times, December 2023].
AstroForge does have a visible edge today, but it is narrower than the headline suggests. The clearest advantage is vertical technical ambition paired with venture backing: the company has raised about $55 million to $56 million, joined Y Combinator's Winter 2022 batch, and continued shipping hardware, including two prototype spacecraft and a newer autonomous control stack called Solo [Y Combinator, Winter 2022] [TechCrunch, May 2022] [Dealroom.co] [SpaceNews] [TechCrunch, September 2026]. That combination, founders with prior aerospace backgrounds, and repeated access to capital can matter in a category where iteration requires real flight attempts rather than slideware [Business Insider Africa] [OODAloop] [TechCrunch, September 2026]. The durability of that edge is less clear. Capital and engineering talent are advantages only if they convert into flight heritage, and public reporting says both prototypes experienced anomalies that prevented most mission objectives from being achieved, which makes the edge perishable until reliability improves [TechCrunch, September 2026] [Superpower Daily].
The company is most exposed where legacy alternatives are strongest: economics, credibility, and mission execution. Terrestrial producers retain the practical advantage because buyers of platinum group metals do not need AstroForge's supply to exist in order to operate, and public sources here do not establish customer demand, offtake agreements, or a delivered unit-cost advantage for asteroid-derived material [Bloomberg, December 2023]. Conventional space players also hold the credibility advantage on operations, because AstroForge's public milestones include spacecraft launches but also communications and mission anomalies, including reporting around Odin's loss of control after launch in 2025 [AstroForge] [Superpower Daily] [TechCrunch, September 2026].
The most plausible 18-month scenario is a sorting event based on whether AstroForge can turn its next mission into credible technical proof rather than another partial demonstration. Winner if X: AstroForge, if DeepSpace-2 or the planned autonomous flight materially improves communications, navigation, and in-space processing evidence, because in this category successful milestones can reset the credibility gap faster than branding or hiring can [SpaceNews] [Aerospace America] [TechCrunch, September 2026]. Loser if Y: AstroForge, if another anomaly leaves the company with more capital raised than mission proof, because terrestrial supply remains the default substitute and investor attention in space tends to concentrate around teams with repeatable hardware performance rather than ambitious target markets alone [Bloomberg, December 2023] [The New York Times, February 2025].
Opportunity
Opportunity
PUBLIC The prize here is unusually large because AstroForge is not trying to sell a better mining tool, it is trying to create a new supply path for platinum group metals by pairing in-space resource extraction with increasingly autonomous spacecraft operations [Y Combinator, Winter 2022] [Apple Podcasts, 2026] [TechCrunch, September 2026].
The headline opportunity is straightforward to state even if execution remains difficult: AstroForge could become the first venture-backed company to prove a repeatable commercial loop for identifying, reaching, and processing metal-bearing near-Earth asteroids, then turn that capability into a durable space-industrial platform [SBIR] [TechCrunch, January 2023] [SpaceNews]. That outcome is still conditional, but it is not untethered from evidence. The company has raised about $55 million to $56 million across disclosed financings, including a reported $13 million seed in 2022 and a reported $40 million Series A led by Nova Threshold in 2024, which suggests investors have continued funding the thesis after early flight setbacks rather than treating those missions as terminal failures [TechCrunch, May 2022] [Dealroom.co] [SpaceNews] [O'Melveny]. Just as important, AstroForge has moved beyond concept-stage claims into hardware and mission attempts, with two prototype spacecraft launched and a later autonomous mission planned for 2027 using its in-house control stack, Solo [TechCrunch, September 2026] [AI Chat Daily] [Technology Org, September 2026].
A credible upside case rests on a small set of concrete paths rather than one monolithic moonshot. The table below separates those paths by the operational proof point that would matter most.
| Scenario | What happens | Catalyst | Why it's plausible |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prove orbital processing first | AstroForge demonstrates that its refinery technology can process relevant material in space before full asteroid extraction, creating an earlier commercial validation point | A successful in-space test of metal refinery technology | The company said in 2023 that it planned to test its refinery technology in space, showing the roadmap has long included staged technical derisking rather than skipping directly to full mining [TechCrunch, January 2023] |
| Become the autonomous operations layer for deep-space missions | Solo matures from an internal tool into the core enabling layer for missions where communication delays make manual control impractical | A successful 2027 autonomous spacecraft mission using Solo | TechCrunch reported that AstroForge built Solo as an internally developed transformer-based spacecraft-control stack and plans to fly an autonomous spacecraft in 2027 [TechCrunch, September 2026]. Additional coverage describes Solo as sitting above deterministic flight software and subsystem-specific models trained on roughly 2,500 spacecraft sensors, which points to a reusable control architecture if it works in flight [Progressive Robot, September 2026] [Technology Org, September 2026] |
| Establish the first repeatable asteroid resource franchise | AstroForge identifies, reaches, and characterizes a viable near-Earth asteroid, then uses that data to support repeat missions and eventual extraction economics | A successful follow-on deep-space mission such as DeepSpace-2 with improved spacecraft design | Public reporting says the company has completed assembly of DeepSpace-2 and redesigned it using lessons from an earlier failed mission, which implies iteration rather than a reset to first principles [SpaceNews] [Aerospace America] |
The compounding mechanism, if it appears, comes from mission learning and autonomy. Each spacecraft attempt generates design data, fault data, and operational data that can feed the next vehicle and the Solo control stack, which is described as using subsystem-level models and a higher-level intelligence layer trained on thousands of spacecraft sensor inputs [Progressive Robot, September 2026] [daily.dev]. In other words, one successful mission would not only validate a single asset, it could lower the marginal risk of the next mission by improving navigation, power management, anomaly handling, and onboard decision-making.
There is also a more subtle form of compounding in capital access and partner credibility. AstroForge has already attracted Y Combinator and a venture syndicate that includes 776, Initialized, Caladan, and Nova Threshold, and public reporting ties its future mission roadmap to Stoke Space and NASA-backed scientific work [Y Combinator, Winter 2022] [TechCrunch, September 2026]. In frontier categories, external validation often determines whether a company can keep financing long development cycles; here, continued backing after anomalies suggests investors believe the learning curve may still be steep enough to justify more capital [TechCrunch, September 2026] [SpaceNews].
The size of the win is best framed as a platform outcome rather than a near-term mining revenue model. Public sources provided for this section do not include a defensible third-party market size or close public comparable, so any valuation framing has to stay conditional. If AstroForge were to prove reliable autonomous deep-space operations and repeatable asteroid characterization, then extend that into commercial resource missions, it could plausibly support a multibillion-dollar enterprise value as a space-resources and autonomy platform (scenario, not a forecast), because the company would own scarce flight heritage in a category where few private players have progressed to launched hardware, let alone iterative deep-space missions [TechCrunch, September 2026] [SpaceNews] [The New York Times, February 2025]. That upside case depends less on a single payload sale and more on becoming the first company with demonstrated know-how across prospecting, autonomy, and in-space processing.
Lightly corroborated -- This section relies on a mix of independent reporting from TechCrunch, SpaceNews, and The New York Times, with some product-detail support from secondary summaries and company-adjacent sources that are not fully independently corroborated.
Sources
Public sources
[Y Combinator, Winter 2022] AstroForge | Y Combinator | https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/astroforge
[TechCrunch, September 2026] AstroForge is putting AI in command of its next spacecraft | TechCrunch | https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/22/astroforge-is-putting-ai-in-command-of-its-next-spacecraft/
[Dealroom.co] AstroForge | Dealroom.co | https://dealroom.co/companies/astroforge
[SpaceNews] AstroForge raises $40 million for asteroid prospecting mission | SpaceNews | https://spacenews.com/astroforge-raises-40-million-for-asteroid-prospecting-mission/
[TechCrunch, May 2022] Astroforge raises $13M round for asteroid mining ambitions | TechCrunch | https://techcrunch.com/2022/05/26/astroforge-raises-13m-seed-round-for-asteroid-mining-ambitions/
[TechCrunch, January 2023] Asteroid mining startup AstroForge will test its metal refinery tech in space this year | TechCrunch | https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/24/asteroid-mining-startup-astroforge-will-test-its-metal-refinery-tech-in-space-this-year/
[Technology Org, September 2026] AstroForge is putting AI in command of its next spacecraft | Technology Org | https://technology.org/2026/09/25/astroforge-is-putting-ai-in-command-of-its-next-spacecraft/
[Superpower Daily] AstroForge puts AI in command of its next spacecraft | Superpower Daily | https://www.superpowerdaily.com/p/astroforge-puts-ai-in-command-of-its-next-spacecraft
[AI Chat Daily] AstroForge is putting AI in command of its next spacecraft | AI Chat Daily | https://aichatdaily.com/astroforge-is-putting-ai-in-command-of-its-next-spacecraft/
[Bloomberg] Matt Gialich, Astroforge Inc: Profile and Biography - Bloomberg Markets | https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/person/25256126
[Business Insider Africa] Meet the startup founders trying to mine asteroids for precious metals | Business Insider Africa | https://africa.businessinsider.com/local/careers/meet-the-startup-founders-trying-to-mine-asteroids-for-precious-metals/2wlf2x5
[Tracxn] AstroForge - Funding and Investors | Tracxn | https://tracxn.com/d/companies/astroforge/__w0j0m3D5VwYcBd2nH4V4vP1eK7XxYwY8wqk3o6J3j4Y/funding-and-investors
[Crunchbase] AstroForge | Crunchbase | https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/astroforge
[SBIR] AstroForge, Inc. | SBIR.gov | https://www.sbir.gov/awards/223628
[Apple Podcasts, 2026] Matt Gialich: Mining Asteroids, Why Space Matters, and Building AstroForge | Apple Podcasts | https://podcasts.apple.com/
[Shawn Ryan Show, retrieved 2026] Matt Gialich - Asteroid Mining, China, Space Wars & Interstellar Travel | Shawn Ryan Show | https://shawnryanshow.com/podcast/matt-gialich-143/
[Orbital Radar, retrieved 2026] Brokkr-1 (OrbAstro-AF-1) | Orbital Radar | https://orbitalradar.com/satellite/58995
[AstroForge, retrieved 2026] Odin | AstroForge | https://www.astroforge.io/odin
[Progressive Robot, September 2026] AstroForge is putting AI in command of its next spacecraft | Progressive Robot | https://www.progressiverobot.co.uk/astroforge-is-putting-ai-in-command-of-its-next-spacecraft/
[daily.dev] AstroForge is putting AI in command of its next spacecraft | daily.dev | https://daily.dev/blog/astroforge-is-putting-ai-in-command-of-its-next-spacecraft
[Aerospace America, retrieved 2026] AstroForge redesigns Deep Space 2 after Odin mission issues | Aerospace America | https://aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org/astroforge-redesigns-deep-space-2-after-odin-mission-issues/
[The New York Times, February 2025] Earth’s 1st Asteroid Mining Prospector Heads to the Launchpad | The New York Times | https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/23/science/astroforge-launch-asteroid-mining.html
[Bloomberg, December 2023] Mining Rare Earths and Metals From Asteroids Is an Expensive Challenge | Bloomberg | https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-12-06/mining-rare-earths-and-metals-from-asteroids-is-an-expensive-challenge
[The New York Times, December 2023] The First Secret Asteroid Mission Won’t Be the Last | The New York Times | https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/27/science/secret-asteroid-mission-astroforge.html
[OODAloop] Astro Forge | OODAloop | https://oodaloop.com/company-profiles/space/astro-forge/
[O'Melveny] O’Melveny Represents Nova Threshold in AstroForge’s $40 Million Series A | O'Melveny | https://www.omm.com/insights/alerts-publications/alerts/omelveny-represents-nova-threshold-in-astroforges-40-million-series-a/
Articles about AstroForge
- A Transformer Model Named Solo Will Pilot AstroForge's Next Deep Space Craft — The Southern California startup, backed by YC and 776, plans a 2027 deep-space mission with its in-house transformer model after earlier prototypes faltered.