Spacecraft Makes Bold Approach to Metal Object in Earth's Orbit.
A "historical approach."
A Japanese space technology team has conducted an exciting operation in Earth's orbit, approaching a discarded rocket. This mission, part of the effort by the company Astroscale, aims to ultimately remove a 11-meter-long booster amidst a growing problem of space debris, which includes over 27,000 objects larger than 10 centimeters in orbit. The initiative, called Active Debris Removal by Astroscale-Japan (ADRAS-J), has reached a significant milestone by achieving the closest approach by a commercial company to space debris, coming within just 15 meters of the discarded rocket.
This rocket, belonging to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), was part of a mission that took place in 2009 to launch the GOSAT earth observation satellite. The space debris removal phase is a component of the "Commercial Removal of Debris Demonstration" project, seeking an effective methodology to manage problematic objects in space.
ADRAS-J had previously flown over the metal fragment, gathering images and data about its condition and trajectory. In this recent mission, carried out on November 30, the satellite demonstrated its ability to operate accurately at short distances from the abandoned rocket, which is essential for future capture operations. The interaction between large objects moving at high speeds could result in accidents, thus exacerbating the existing problem.
To execute this approach, the satellite positioned itself behind the rocket, closing in a straight line from 50 meters away. It then stopped 15 meters from the upper stage of the rocket. Although there were significant achievements, the development did not go as planned. The satellite’s collision avoidance system triggered an autonomous abort upon detecting an unexpected anomaly in the relative attitude towards the upper stage of the rocket, leading the team to maneuver safely before reaching the capture initiation point. Astroscale Japan is investigating the causes of this incident.
The ADRAS-J program has a second mission planned, ADRAS-J2, expected to launch in 2028 with a budget of $82 million. This new satellite, currently under construction, will feature a robotic arm designed to bring the booster to a lower orbit where it will mostly burn up upon re-entering the Earth's atmosphere. The aspiration of the space community, both governmental and commercial, is to keep low Earth orbit free of space debris, especially from inert vehicles that cannot maneuver by themselves.
NASA describes the concept of low Earth orbit (LEO) as a "dumping ground for space objects," given that millions of debris pieces are estimated to be orbiting, composed mainly of human-generated elements, such as fragments of spacecraft, rocket parts, and non-operational satellites.
