{"id":17975,"date":"2019-07-29T17:51:24","date_gmt":"2019-07-29T09:51:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/first-mode-celebrates-first-steps-in-space-exploration-and-looks-ahead-to-the-moon\/"},"modified":"2019-07-29T17:51:24","modified_gmt":"2019-07-29T09:51:24","slug":"first-mode-celebrates-first-steps-in-space-exploration-and-looks-ahead-to-the-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/first-mode-celebrates-first-steps-in-space-exploration-and-looks-ahead-to-the-moon\/","title":{"rendered":"First Mode celebrates first steps in space exploration \u2013 and looks ahead to the moon"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"First
First Mode\u2019s president and chief engineer, Chris Voorhees, shows off the employee-owned company\u2019s digs near Seattle\u2019s Pike Place Market. (GeekWire Photo \/ Alan Boyle)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One year after engineers from the Planetary Resources asteroid mining company peeled off to form their own employee-owned startup, known as First Mode, they can point to the profitable work they\u2019ve done on space missions that are heading for Mars and, yes, an asteroid.<\/p>\n

But now they\u2019re widening their focus to take in projects that are closer to home \u2014 including mining operations back here on Earth, and NASA\u2019s Artemis effort to send astronauts to the moon\u2019s surface by 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re growing our own infrastructure here,\u201d Chris Voorhees, the company\u2019s president and chief engineer, told GeekWire during a tour of First Mode\u2019s office space in Seattle\u2019s Belltown neighborhood, not far from Pike Place Market.<\/p>\n

So far, First Mode has made a name for itself as a design and engineering consultancy, but now it\u2019s putting the infrastructure in place to build hardware as well. Its in-house clean room bears testament to that ambition.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really like the idea of flight hardware getting delivered out of Pike Place Market,\u201d Voorhees said. \u201cWe think that\u2019s pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

First Mode was founded last year amid the financial uncertainties and staff reductions that dogged Redmond, Wash.-based Planetary Resources. Voorhees, a veteran of NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, served as Planetary Resources\u2019 chief engineer. When Voorhees left that company, he joined forces with 10 other alumni to create First Mode (which was initially known as Synchronous). Meanwhile, Planetary Resources morphed into a blockchain venture called ConsenSys Space.<\/p>\n

\"\"
A group portrait shows some of First Mode\u2019s employees with replicas of the \u201cStar Wars\u201d robots R2-D2 and C-3PO in their midst. (First Mode Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the months since its founding, First Mode has been involved in space projects including NASA\u2019s 2020 Mars rover, the Psyche mission to a metal-rich asteroid beyond Mars\u2019 orbit, and the Europa Clipper\u2019s quest to get a closer look at an icy moon of Jupiter.<\/p>\n

The company is picking up recognition: First Mode\u2019s engineers recently won awards from JPL for their roles in designing and delivering the \u201csurrogate rover\u201d for the 2020 Mars mission.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also picking up steam: The head count is currently at 22 full-time employees, up from 14 just a few months ago and shooting for about 30 by the end of the year, said Rhae Adams, another Planetary Resources alumnus who is First Mode\u2019s vice president of strategy and business development.<\/p>\n

Part of the reason for that expansion has to do with First Mode\u2019s diversification. The company\u2019s engineers aim to apply their experience in space applications to down-to-Earth challenges in the fields of mining, metal processing and medical devices, Voorhees said. It\u2019s still too early to go into detail on those projects, but he and Adams acknowledged that the mining projects involve sites in Africa and Australia.<\/p>\n

First Mode\u2019s engineers include veterans from a wide variety of ventures, ranging from Boeing and Lockheed Martin to Tesla and Intel. The prospect of living in the Seattle area is a big draw for recruiting, Voorhees said. \u201cAll of our people are here, and most of our customers are not,\u201d he observed.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s next? \u201cThe part of the market that\u2019s next is trying to find our place within the country\u2019s lunar exploration interests,\u201d Voorhees said.<\/p>\n

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First Mode\u2019s office space includes a clean room for component assembly and testing. (First Mode Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

He\u2019s particularly interested in the opportunities that NASA\u2019s Artemis program may provide for new breeds of rovers and other mobile robotic platforms, plus technologies for resource discovery and utilization. Those technologies play to the strengths of a team that\u2019s accumulated years of experience in developing NASA\u2019s Mars rovers and getting ready to go prospecting for water ice on asteroids.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re certainly not Blue Origin, and we\u2019re not ever going to be,\u201d Voorhees said. \u201cWe\u2019re not Lockheed Martin. We\u2019re probably not going to build a 5-metric-ton-capable lander in Pike Place Market. That\u2019s probably not going to happen. But we have skill sets that, I think, become complementary with those groups.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adams noted that the King County Landmarks Commission just approved historical landmark status for the lunar rovers that were built by Boeing in the Seattle area a half-century ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d like to think we could carry on the legacy of Seattle with mobile platforms on the moon \u2026 even if we start a little smaller than that,\u201d Adams said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t have to have an astronaut riding on the back, but that\u2019s certainly where we\u2019re most excited about going. There are not too many vehicles driving around on other planets right now, and we\u2019re lucky enough to have a good team that knows how to build them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First Mode\u2019s president and chief engineer, Chris Voorhees, shows off the employee-owned company\u2019s digs near Seattle\u2019s Pike Place Market. (GeekWire Photo \/ Alan Boyle) One year after engineers from the Planetary Resources asteroid mining company peeled off to form their own employee-owned startup, known as First Mode, they can point to the profitable work they\u2019ve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4704,304,4689,367,625,4820],"class_list":["post-17975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-2020-mars-rover","tag-artemis","tag-first-mode","tag-mars","tag-moon","tag-planetary-resources"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17975"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17975\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}