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
Loading the full article…
This text was published by TechCrunch AI and written by Tim Fernholz. It is reproduced here with attribution so you can read it in full; the rights remain with the publisher. Read it at the source ↗
The headline, key points and digest above were generated by Digest AI's editorial model from the linked sources. Automated summaries can contain errors: the sources are the record. Spotted a mistake? Tell us. Published by Martin K., who runs Digest AI and handles corrections.
More in Agents & Tools
All →- OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra can control Blender to create 3D models · 1 src
- Opinion: AI could help strawberry farmers forecast harvests and labor · 1 src
- SpaceXAI says Grok Bot reached 418,000 users, up 24% week over week · 1 src
- Rabbit launches OS3 agentic operating system for desktop and mobile · 1 src
- Paper2Agent turns research papers into interactive AI agents · 1 src
Comments
via GitHub Discussions