Astroscaleアストロスケール

Astroscale builds spacecraft that approach other spacecraft. Getting close to another satellite and grappling it is the same problem whatever you do next, so one set of technology covers all four of its businesses: removing debris, extending the life of satellites launched with a docking plate, refuelling them in orbit, and inspecting objects for defence customers. It operates from Japan, the UK, the US, France and Israel.

ADRAS-J is the mission Astroscale is known for. In 2024 it became the first commercial spacecraft to rendezvous with a real piece of debris that was never designed to be approached, a derelict Japanese upper stage tumbling in orbit, closing to fifteen metres and photographing it in detail. Approaching an uncontrolled object that offers you no help is genuinely difficult and nobody had done it commercially before.

It did not capture it, and thirteen years in, Astroscale has never captured an uncooperative object. ELSA-d performed a magnetic capture in 2021, but of a client satellite Astroscale had built itself with a docking plate fitted, and the later autonomous attempt was abandoned after four of eight thrusters failed. Every actual capture and removal remains ahead: ADRAS-J2 in the 2027 financial year, and ELSA-M in 2028 or later, having been assigned to Isar Aerospace's Spectrum, which has flown once and failed. The business is also still substantially subsidised, with government subsidy income making up roughly half of project income in the first half of the 2026 financial year, against a net loss of ¥6.7 billion.