A Southern California startup called Exploration Labs (ExLabs) is planning a mission to rendezvous with the asteroid Apophis in 2028. As part of this mission, ExLabs plans to launch three cubesats into Apophis orbit. Additionally, the mission aims to test systems and software for future campaigns to capture and move near-Earth asteroids into stable orbits for resource extraction.
“We are building a partnership to bring a new approach to more affordable missions with government and commercial companies,” said ExLabs CEO Matthew Schmidgall.
ExLabs develops modular spacecraft that can accommodate partner payloads, as well as robotics to capture and move space objects. One of their spacecraft is the Space Exploration and Resource Vehicle (SERV), capable of carrying a payload of up to 30 metric tons in a folded configuration. The company is also developing the Arachne platform for grasping and moving objects without the ability to maneuver independently.
Long Beach-based ExLabs executives are familiar with the challenges that previous space startups have faced. Therefore, they focus on applying technology to solve current and future space infrastructure challenges.
ExLabs plans to conduct research and development under a 2023 contract with SpaceWERX worth $1.7 million to create autonomous technologies for capturing and moving space objects.
Earlier this year, ExLabs moved into new 9,000-square-foot facilities in Long Beach. It will house the additive manufacturing of spacecraft that require significantly larger size and power to capture asteroids, according to Schmidgall.
ExLabs was founded in 2023 by Matthew Schmidgall, a former partner at Rocket Motorsports, and Miguel Pascual, a former senior systems engineer at Boeing. Recently, ExLabs has increased its staff. They employ Tom Cooley, a former chief scientist at the Air Force Space Systems Research Laboratory, who serves as ExLabs' senior vice president of technology strategy. Dalibor Juran, former chief engineer of E-Space, is ExLabs vice president of spacecraft engineering. Additionally, Keiko Nakamura, ExLabs' science advisor, has worked for nearly 20 years at NASA and has been involved in research on asteroid missions including Hayabusa2 and OSIRIS-REx.
NASA has also expressed interest in available missions to Apophis, which will pass between Earth and geostationary satellite orbit in April 2029. In February, NASA invited private companies and other partners to a workshop on Apophis.
Additionally, NASA plans for the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft to rendezvous with Apophis in April 2029.
bbabo.Net