Hope is all but lost for private asteroid probe in deep space — 'the chance of talking with Odin is minimal'

A view of spacecraft attached to a spacex rocket, including odin asteroid probe, athena moon lander and more.

The first-ever private asteroid mission appears to be over, just a week or so after it left the ground.

California startup AstroForge launched its Odin spacecraft on Feb. 26, on the same SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that sent Intuitive Machines' IM-2 mission toward the moon. Odin ran into trouble just a few hours later, however, and AstroForge has pretty much given up hope of recovering the 265-pound (120-kilogram) probe.