The Asteroid Mining Corporation

The Asteroid Mining Corporation (AMC) is a British aerospace startup focusing on potential of an off-earth commercial mining market. As of May 2022, the startup is in the prospecting and exploration stages and is developing a satellite to prospect near-earth asteroids (NEAs) for mining viability, with hopes of processing and utilizing the materials embedded within NEAs and Main Belt Asteroids.

The startup is developing Space Capable Asteroid Robotic Explorers (SCAR-E), a low-cost, ruggedised, walking and climbing robot capable of asteroid, planetary, and lunar exploration, alongside mining operations. AMC’s Asteroid Prospecting Satellite I (APS-1), which is a microsatellite space telescope, is set to be launched into sun-synchronous Low Earth Orbit in 2025, to scan several thousand NEAs and Main Belt Asteroids to estimate their compositions to be used in aMC’s database. By using this database, the startup will orbit and land on successful asteroids with Asteroid Exploration Probe I (AEP-1), which will then explore the surfaces of these asteroids, take samples, and select sites suitable for AMC’s mining probes. The company announced the formation of its US-based subsidiary , Asteroid Mining Co LLC, in February 2023, in order to expand its operational presence and capitalize on the US space industry landscape.

Key customers and partnerships

The company has fostered some notable partnerships with The Space Robotics Lab out of Tohoku University, Astrophysics Research Institute of Liverpool John Moores University, University of Liverpool, University of Glasgow, and Northern Space Consortium for the development of Asteroid Prospecting Satellite 1 (ASP1) and building of the Space Resources Database.

Funding and financials

In May 2022, the startup closed a pre-seed round for an undisclosed amount with Spanish company E2IN2 SA. The funding is to be used for the development of the Space Capable Asteroid Robotic Explorers (SCAR-E) program in partnership with Tohoku University Space Robotics Laboratory (SRL).