Focus: Space Debris

Deimos won a European Space Agency (ESA) contract for the first phase of a demonstration of a controlled satellite break-up process.  The award announced Tuesday is a 3 million euro ($3.4 million) deal for the first phase of mission development for DRACO, which stands for Destructive Re-entry Assessment Container Object. The mission’s goal is to...

Astroscale has won a new contract in the United Kingdom worth over $2 million. Astroscale UK, a subsidiary of Astroscale, has secured a 1.95 million pound ($2.55 million) contract from the UK Space Agency (UKSA) to continue development of its Cleaning Outer Space Mission through Innovative Capture (COSMIC) spacecraft. The deal was announced Sept. 11....

Astroscale Japan’s ADRAS-J mission recently completed a controlled fly-around of a rocket upper stage in orbit, taking pictures of the object. Astroscale reports this is the world’s first attempt to safely approach and survey an existing piece of large debris through rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO). This is a critical milestone in the commercial debris...

For at least two decades, there has been rising recognition and concern about a problem for our industry. Not a little problem. A big, hairy bodacious problem that could put our entire business out of business. It’s the problem of keeping things in Earth orbit from smashing into other things. Space, with the support of...

LeoLabs has won an AFWERX contract for $1.2 million to build a radar to track objects in Low-Earth Orbit (LEO), the company announced Thursday. LeoLabs will design, develop, build, and test a prototype S-band 2-D direct radiating array (DRA) that is capable of advanced object tracking in LEO.  The award is a small business innovation...

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel called on the agency this week to update its orbital debris mitigation rules to limit the risks of accidental explosions in space.  Rosenworcel proposes adding a specific, quantitative metric that satellites must meet. If adopted, the updated rules would require satellite applicants to assess and limit the probability of debris-generating accidental...

JAXA selected Astroscale Japan, a subsidiary of Astroscale Holdings, as the commercial partner for Phase II of JAXA’s Commercial Removal of Debris Demonstration (CRD2) program. Astroscale Japan announced the partnership on April 25.  Eddie Kato, president and managing director of Astroscale Japan, said Astroscale has demonstrated several capabilities during Phase I of the mission and...

The ClearSpace-1 debris removal mission changed its objective after detecting a space debris collision of the target with untraceable debris. In-space debris removal company ClearSpace announced the decision on April 24. ClearSpace pivoted to the next stage of the ClearSpace-1 mission following a technical and programmatic review with the European Space Agency (ESA). The debris...

Kongsberg NanoAvionics selects Neuraspace’s space traffic management (STM) solution for its own end-to-end small satellite mission services. The company announced the deal on March 19.  The European satellite manufacturer and mission integrator will utilize Neuraspace’s STM system for collision analysis, maneuver planning, space sustainability improvement, operations packages and increasing asset security for customers. NanoAvionics says...

A NASA satellite and a Russian satellite had a close pass in orbit on Wednesday morning, one that LeoLabs called “too close for comfort.”  NASA reported that the Department of Defense confirmed the NASA Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics Mission (TIMED) spacecraft and the Russian Cosmos 2221 satellite passed each other safely in orbit...