Proposing to aid in the removal of orbital debris through the provision of End of Life (EOL) and Active Debris Removal (ADR) services.
Created: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2022-09-18
Company - Astroscale
Service
- Classification
- In-Space Transportation
- Category
- Active Debris Removal (ADR)
On-Orbit Servicing
- Fields
- End of Life (EOL)
In-Space Satellite Servicing
- Status
- 3) Development
- First launch
- 2020
Selected as the commercial partner for Phase I of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) first debris removal project, a groundbreaking step by Japan to commercialize space debris removal.
The JAXA Commercial Removal of Debris Demonstration project (CRD2) consists of two mission phases to achieve one of the world’s first debris removal missions of a large object, the first of which has been awarded to Astroscale. This first phase will be demonstrated by the end of the Japan Fiscal Year 2022 and will focus on data acquisition on an upper stage Japanese rocket body. Astroscale will be responsible for the manufacturing, launch and operations of the satellite that will characterize the rocket body, acquiring and delivering movement observational data to better understand the debris environment.
ELSA-d, or End of Life Services by Astroscale-demonstration, comprises a 175-kilogram servicer spacecraft and a 17-kilogram client satellite both set to launch March 20 as part of a GK Launch Services’ Soyuz-2 rideshare mission lifting off from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan.
Astroscale is also working on a separate spacecraft called Elsa-m, designed to capture and de-orbit three or four objects in a single mission for a constellation customer.
Auburn said Astroscale is also bidding this year for a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) contract to de-orbit a discarded upper stage of a rocket, without a docking plate. He said the mission will happen “probably by 2025,” with a spacecraft that will require “some kind of robotic arm.”
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