Astroscale is a public, on-orbit servicing company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, committed to the safe and sustainable development of space. As the first private company dedicated to in-orbit servicing across all orbits, Astroscale develops innovative solutions for end-of-life services, active debris removal, in-situ space situational awareness, and life extension of satellites. They work with government and commercial stakeholders like JAXA, U.S. Space Force, ESA, and OneWeb to develop norms and technologies for responsible space operations, aiming to mitigate the growing hazard of space debris.
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The Astroscale U.S. headquarters in Denver occupies 13,500 square feet and includes a lab and operations center.
Astroscale entered into a loan agreement of JPY 3 billion (approximately $22,000,000) with Mizuho Bank, Ltd.
The loan provides Astroscale with greater financial flexibility to pursue the objective of establishing routine on-orbit services.
Astroscale U.S. opened a new state-of-the-art headquarters facility in Denver, Colorado on 2023-04-24.
Shunji "Bert" Izutsu will become Vice President of Astroscale Japan effective 2023-04-15.
Astroscale supports the development of enhanced monitoring of adherence to post-mission disposal commitments.
Astroscale finds that the use of percentage-based targets for post-mission disposal alone is insufficient.
Astroscale endorses the updated Best Practices for Sustainability of Space Operations with three exceptions: clauses 5.a., 7.a., and 8.j.
Astroscale supports using aggregate risk metrics to calculate and regulate collision risk on a system-wide basis.
Astroscale finds that single-satellite collision risk metrics are insufficient.
Astroscale hopes that industry-level practices will eventually be incorporated into formal sustainable space governance.
During the ADRAS-J mission, Astroscale will implement safety and transparency measures based on the "Guidelines on a License to Operate a Spacecraft Performing On-Orbit Servicing" issued by the Japanese government in November 2021.
Rocket Lab planned a 2023 mission to demonstrate space debris removal technology by Astroscale Japan.
Astroscale U.S., in partnership with CisLunar Industries, won a Small Business Innovative Research award from the U.S. Space Force to test technologies for repurposing debris into materials like propellant.
Astroscale raised $76,000,000 in a Series G funding round, bringing its total funding for in-orbit servicing to more than $376,000,000.
Astroscale has raised U.S. $76,000,000 from new investors including Mitsubishi Electric and Yusaku Maezawa, bringing the company’s total funding to U.S. $376,000,000.
Astroscale is part of a team awarded a $1,700,000 contract by the U.S. Space Force under the Orbital Prime program.
Mitsubishi Electric invested U.S. $25,000,000 in Astroscale’s Series G funding round.
Astroscale has an agreement with Mitsubishi Electric to collaborate in developing and manufacturing sustainably designed satellite buses for Japanese national-security constellations.
The COSMIC debris-removal servicer will be a technological evolution of Astroscale’s ELSA-M servicer developed under the Sunrise programme in commercial partnership with the European Space Agency, the UK Space Agency, and OneWeb.