AstroForge plans first fully autonomous space mission for 2027
Asteroid-mining startup AstroForge scheduled its Autonomy-1 demonstration for early 2027 aboard the inaugural orbital flight of Stoke Space’s Nova Pathfinder rocket, aiming to complete a full space mission without receiving a single command from Earth.
The spacecraft will be directed by Solo, an onboard software model designed to eliminate human ground intervention after launch vehicle separation. According to AstroForge chief executive officer and cofounder Matt Gialich, the flight removes mission control operators from direct spacecraft management.
Flight architecture and communication rules
Solo operates directly on top of AstroForge’s deterministic, physics-based flight software, allowing the vehicle to make real-time decisions during flight. The communication protocol between the vehicle and ground stations will be strictly one-way: the spacecraft will downlink telemetry and scientific information so engineers can verify system operations, but ground teams will send zero commands back to the probe after deployment from the upper stage.
“The mission objective is deliberately straightforward: after Autonomy-1 separates from its launch vehicle, we do not intend to send the spacecraft a single command,” Gialich stated. “Autonomy-1 will transmit telemetry and science data back to Earth so that we can observe what the spacecraft is doing, understand the decisions Solo makes and collect science.”
Mission details and payload manifest
- Launch vehicle: Nova Pathfinder fully reusable rocket developed by Stoke Space
- Launch site: Space Launch Complex 14 (SLC-14) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida
- Scientific payload: COMPASS (Compact Multi-Spectral Photometer for Space Science) from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
- Secondary manifest payload: Infinite Flight cargo by Celestis
- Startup funding: US$ 56 million in total venture capital raised since founding
Testing roadmap and earlier mission challenges
Before launching Autonomy-1 into Earth orbit, AstroForge will test the Solo model in shadow mode during its DeepSpace-2 mission, which rides on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket alongside the Intuitive Machines IM-3 lunar lander. In shadow mode, the software processes live telemetry and calculates navigational choices without executing them, validating the decision matrix before autonomous execution takes full operational control of a vehicle.
The California-based firm, founded in January 2022 to extract metals from celestial bodies, previously faced technical hurdles during two initial space flights. In April 2023, the startup placed its Brokkr-1 cubesat in orbit but failed to fire its metal-refining payload. In February 2025, its deep-space probe Odin launched alongside the Intuitive Machines IM-2 lunar mission, but ground teams lost communication with the craft because of ground antenna availability limits.
Ground control costs and vehicle configurations
AstroForge stated that human monitoring teams and dedicated tracking antennas account for roughly one-third of total space mission expenses. Automating the operational chain is intended to lower long-term mission budgets as the company prepares fleets for deep-space resource surveying.
Engineers have not yet confirmed whether the Autonomy-1 hardware will physically exclude radio uplink receivers or keep the receiving antennas inactive through software controls during flight.
The flight will mark the first orbital test for Stoke Space from Cape Canaveral, carrying both Autonomy-1 and Celestis cargo to begin orbital performance verifications in early 2027.
