As a first step in collecting space debris, the National Space Development Agency of Japan‘s (NASDA) satellite, mu-Lab Sat, last month captured images of a small target jettisoned from the satellite.

mu-Lab Sat, whose mass is only 50 kilograms, is a microsatellite launched piggyback with Midori-II by the H-IIA F4 rocket on Dec. 14. Sophisticated software technology is required to identify a small target and capture pictures in strong sunlight with the gleaming earth in the background. Japan’s National Aerospace Laboratory (NAL) has been studying possible ways of collecting and removing space debris, and the successful image acquisition verified the ability to identify and capture an on-orbit target by image recognition, as the first step.