Astroscale’s active debris removal spacecraft, ADRAS-J, has sent images back to Earth of a close encounter with space debris in Earth’s orbit.

Headquartered in Japan and with subsidiaries in the UK, US, France and Israel, Astroscale is a satellite servicing and space debris removal company.

In February 2024, it launched ADRAS-J into orbit. Its mission is to test safe methods of approaching and surveying large pieces of space debris in orbit – what Astroscale calls rendezvous and proximity operations.

To test its capabilities, ADRAS-J was aimed at a piece of floating space junk – the discarded upper stage of a Japanese H-2A rocket launched in 2009. This bus-sized piece of debris measures 11 metres by four metres, and weighs approximately three tons.

In June 2024, ADRAS-J managed to get just 50 metres from the debris and relayed the image back to Earth earlier this week.

The fly-around observation involved a complex, autonomous operation to manoeuvre ADRAS-J around the upper stage rocket...