TOKYO — An Astroscale spacecraft is continuing to inspect a Japanese upper stage left in low Earth orbit as it demonstrates it can do so safely.
Astroscale announced on July 9 that its Active Debris Removal by Astroscale-Japan (ADRAS-J) spacecraft performed a “fly-around” maneuver, partially going around the H-2A upper stage it has been inspecting for the past few months. ADRAS-J used sensors to maintain a distance of only 50 meters from the scene.
However, about a third of the way through the maneuver, ADRAS-J encountered what the company called an “unexpected attitude anomaly” that triggered an automatic abort. The spacecraft left the scene as designed to avoid any risk of a collision.
“The abort maneuver implemented during the flight operation showed that ADRAS-J can maintain safety even while conducting close-up observations of uncooperative objects,” the company said in a statement, adding that engineers had found the cause of the anomaly and were preparing for a another close approach to the scene.
Aside from the anomaly, Astroscale says the ADRAS-J mission went well. The spacecraft launched in February and reached the vicinity of the H-2A stage in April. It came within 50 meters of the stage in May and has been conducting its inspections since then, leading up to the flight maneuver that began on June 19.
Nobu Okada, founder and chief executive of Astroscale, showed some of the images of the scene taken by ADRAS-J during a July 8 presentation at the Spacetide conference here. “It was just beautiful,” he said.
The images showed that the scene remained in relatively pristine condition after 15 years in orbit. “These images hold many implications” for future debris removal efforts, he said. Among them is a very low decay rate, which he called “almost static.”
In addition to being a technical demonstration of rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO), Okada said ADRAS-J was a policy demonstration, following guidelines for in-orbit servicing issued by the Japanese government for safety and transparency. This included obtaining appropriate permits, emphasizing safe operations, and sharing information about spacecraft operations.
ADRAS-J is the first phase of a program by the Japanese space agency JAXA called the Commercial Debris Removal Demonstration. In April, JAXA selected Astroscale for the second phase of the program, where the company will send a spacecraft to the same upper stage for its deorbit. Astroscale has not released detailed plans for that mission.
While Astroscale operated ADRAS-J, the company also conducted an initial public offering on the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s Growth Market, an exchange for companies with higher growth potential but also higher risk. Astroscale rose on its first day of trading on June 5, closing up more than 60%. The company has since returned those gains and closed on July 9 at 818 yen ($5.07) per share, below its IPO price of 850 yen.
“This shows that the global investor community sees the importance of space sustainability, but also the market opportunity for services in orbit,” he said of the IPO.
Okada highlighted the company’s growth, noting that its remaining stake has grown from 1.7 billion yen two years ago to 28.5 billion yen today. “By leveraging RPO technologies, we are finally capturing the opportunities,” he said. “We’re at the cusp of a booming on-orbit service market.”