ASTROSCALE JAPAN SELECTED FOR PHASE II OF JAXA’S CRD2 PROGRAM

The CRD2 program aims to remove an unprepared Japanese upper stage rocket body, thereby addressing the increasingly critical issue of space debris. Unprepared objects in orbit pose an additional challenge as they have not been prepared with any technologies that enable docking or potential servicing or removal.

The program is contracted in two phases, and Astroscale Japan was also selected for Phase I, where the company was responsible for the design, manufacture, test, launch and operations of ADRAS-J. ADRAS-J is the world’s first attempt to safely approach, characterize and survey the state of an existing piece of large debris through RPO[1]. The spacecraft is designed to rendezvous, execute proximity operations, and gather images to assess the rocket body’s movement and condition of the structure.

The ADRAS-J mission recently achieved a key technical milestone: the successful safe and controlled approach to an unprepared space debris object to a relative distance of several hundred meters.

The ADRAS-J follow-on active debris removal spacecraft, ADRAS-J2, will similarly attempt to safely approach the same rocket body through rendezvous and proximity operations, obtain further images, then remove and deorbit the rocket body using in-house robotic arm technologies.