Astroscale Japan Inc., a subsidiary of Astroscale Holdings Inc., the company in satellite servicing and long-term orbital sustainability across all orbits, announced that it has signed a contract with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) for Phase II of JAXA’s Commercial Removal of Debris Demonstration (CRD2) program, one of the world’s first technology demonstrations of removing large-scale debris from orbit. The contract is valued at approximately 13 billion yen.

The CRD2 program aims to remove an unprepared Japanese upper stage rocket body, thereby addressing the increasingly critical issue of space debris. Unprepared objects in orbit pose an additional challenge as they have not been prepared with any technologies that enable docking or potential servicing or removal.

The program is contracted in two phases, and Astroscale Japan was also selected for Phase I, where the company was responsible for the design, manufacture, test, launch and operations of Active Debris Removal by Astroscale-Japan (ADRAS-J). ADRAS-J is the world’s first mission to safely approach, characterize and survey the state of an existing piece of large debris through rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO). After demonstrating safe approach and proximity operations with the object that is the size of a city bus, ADRAS-J has been gathering images and data to assess its movement and structural condition.

The ADRAS-J follow-on active debris removal spacecraft, ADRAS-J2, will similarly attempt to safely approach the same rocket body through RPO, obtain further images, then remove and deorbit the rocket body using in-house robotic arm technologies.

The ADRAS-J mission recently achieved an unprecedented technical milestone for a commercial company: the controlled fly-around observations of the upper stage while maintaining a controlled fixed-point relative position of approximately 50 meters from the upper stage. The major mission achievements completed so far include:

• Feb. 18: launch and start of in-orbit operations 
• Feb. 22: start of the rendezvous phase 
• Apr. 9: start of Angles Only Navigation and proximity approach from several hundred kilometers 
• Apr. 16: start of Model Matching Navigation 
• Apr. 17: approach to the client within several hundred meters 
• May 23: approach to the client within 50 meters. 
• May 23: first fixed-point observation completed. 
• Jun. 17: second fixed-point observation completed. 
• Jun. 19: start of fly-around operation and validation of collision avoidance system. 
• Jul. 14: approach to the client within 50 meters. Third fixed-point observation completed. 
• Jul. 15: successful second fly-around observation. 
• Jul. 16: successful third fly-around observation.

ADRAS-J2 will be key in driving global space debris mitigation and remediation efforts, while shaping a sustainable future in space.

Click here to learn more about Astroscale's ADRAS-J Demonstration Spacecraft