First Mode, a design, engineering, and complex-system development firm, today announced it has exited stealth mode to bring the tools and technologies of deep space exploration to challenging industrial problems around the globe. 

“First Mode is working with industries on and off the planet to do design and creative engineering work, but also to build hardware and build solutions that get deployed around the solar system as well as a lot of harsh and challenging environments here on planet Earth,” Rhae Adams, vice president of strategy and business development, told GeekWire.

Mines are surprisingly analogous to spacecraft. Though they certainly don’t look similar, they are both complex systems made of elements that can interact in unexpected ways. Like a spacecraft, a mine is only one part of a system whose elements can include people, hardware, software, materials, and processes.