AstroForge plans to fly AI‑controlled spacecraft Solo in 2027
AstroForge, a startup founded in 2022 to mine asteroids, is turning to artificial intelligence for spacecraft autonomy. The company built an in‑house transformer‑based control stack called Solo, which combines traditional control algorithms with subsystem‑specific models and is trained on about 2,500 onboard sensors.
Key points
- Solo is a transformer‑based autonomy stack trained on roughly 2,500 spacecraft sensors.
- AstroForge, backed by $56 million, aims to launch Solo on DeepSpace‑2 by end‑2026 and on Autonomy‑1 in 2027.
- CEO Matthew Gialich says the AI approach avoids building a $200 million global ground‑antenna network.
After two prototype spacecraft suffered anomalies and a 2025 Odin mission lost contact, AstroForge decided to rely on onboard intelligence rather than a $200 million global ground‑antenna network. CEO Matthew Gialich and head of flight software Armand Awad say Solo will first fly in “shadow mode” on the DeepSpace‑2 vehicle, slated to launch with Intuitive Machines’ third moon mission by the end of 2026. A later Autonomy‑1 mission in 2027, planned on the first Stoke Space rocket and backed by NASA, would operate without radios, putting full decision‑making on Solo while also gathering solar science data.
AstroForge is putting AI in command of its next spacecraft
TechCrunch AI · 22 September 2026
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