Investors are always looking for companies operating in the pioneering technology sector to expand their network to uncharted territories, including outside the atmosphere.
Recently, a startup called Karman+ with the ambition to build self-driving spacecraft that can travel to satellites and exploit rare metal materials has now raised 20 million USD to enter the stage of developing equipment based on the plan.
This plan is similar to what is told in a science fiction novel. A representative of Karman+ shared that with advances in automation technology and space exploration, the company's job is simply to build a spaceship using available parts, the results are on the way to reality with a cost of 10 million USD or less.
What is hard to imagine here is the figure of 10 million USD given by the company, because according to what the technology world has known to the present, successful space exploration missions can be counted on the fingers of one hand, with a cost of no less than 1 billion USD for each missile launch (according to NASA data).
Karman+'s initial goal was to build a spacecraft that could travel to reality reality reality reality on satellites far from Earth, exploiting water and the layer of materials at the surface (called Regulars), then returning to Earth's orbit, using component separation from Regulars to fuel spacecraft and the repulsion engines of older satellites to extend their lifespan.
The company has since realized the potential for exploiting rare metals and other materials from satellites, and is an opportunity to expand a supplementary fuel market for the Earth worth billions of dollars a year. This is also the convincing reason why Karman+ receives funding from like-minded investors. The company is expected to complete the plan in 2027.
Karman+ is headquartered in Denver, Colorado and is run by Dutch director Teun van den Dries and his colleagues. The name Karman+ is named after the Karman Street, a concept of where the Earth's atmosphere ends and opens up in space - a suitable metaphor for how Teun van den Dries built the idea of founding a company with co-founder Daynan Crull.
