Video: Astroscale reveals what space debris looks like from just 15 meters away.
In December 2024, the Japanese company Astroscale announced that its ADRAS-J satellite (Active Debris Removal by Astroscale-Japan) had reached its target—the upper stage of the Japanese H-2A rocket—at a record distance of 15 meters. However, it was only recently that Astroscale released a video recording of this event.
2025-02-28 10:01:09https://naked-science.ru/community/1034017
ADRAS-J was built at the request of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to explore the possibility of removing large fragments of space debris from orbit.
As of now, ADRAS-J has successfully completed all observations of space debris scheduled by JAXA, including three flybys of the upper stage of the H-2A rocket.
The data collected during these approaches will be taken into account for the preparation of the second phase of the program. In this phase, in 2027, the ADRAS-J2 device will be sent to the H-2A stage, where it will attempt to capture and deorbit it.