Prospector
Free, open-source software from Karman+ that helps pick which asteroids a spacecraft can reach and what spacecraft to build for the trip.
Why it matters
Choosing a reachable, worthwhile asteroid is one of the first hard problems in any asteroid mission. Releasing the tool openly lets researchers and other startups run the same early screening Karman+ uses.
How the technology works
Given a mission and a rough vehicle design, Prospector screens the catalog of small bodies against the vehicle's fuel budget using orbital data alone. It then filters reachable targets by composition, size and structure, and passes the best ones to more precise trajectory solvers, ending with a flyable path.
Karman+'s own engine and vehicle library is not included.
Sources
Updated Oct 22, 2026 · How we source facts · Suggest a correction