Japanese company Astrocscale says it has successfully launched a space probe intended to detect dangerous space debris. As the company announced on Monday, the probe was launched from New Zealand on Sunday.
Their mission, called Active Debris Removal by Astroscale-Japan (ADRAS-J), is primarily about finding the remains of the Japanese rocket H-IIA, which has been wandering through space for fifteen years. After launch, Astroscale was able to make contact with the probe from Earth, explains project manager Eijiro Atarashi. It is now ready for use in the search for the upper stage of the H-IIA rocket, which the Japanese space agency JAXA sent into space in 2009 and which is about the size of a bus.
The probe is intended to locate the space debris using observations from space, approach it ‘at a safe distance’ and take pictures of it. These are intended to help assess the condition of the rocket component and predict its movements in space.
First mission of its kind ever
The H-IIA rocket stage was selected for the first phase of a larger-scale waste collection in space. The Japanese space agency wants to work with the private sector to collect large pieces of space debris of Japanese origin. According to Astroscale, ADRAS-J is the first such mission ever.
There are several approaches to removing dangerous space debris from Earth’s orbit. The waste can be moved into another orbit using a laser beam, or a space garbage truck can collect the pieces using a magnet.
A million pieces of satellite and rocket debris
The problem of space debris has increased significantly recently. According to estimates by the European Space Agency (ESA), there are about a million pieces of satellite and rocket debris measuring more than one centimeter in orbit around the Earth. So these are large enough to disable a spacecraft in the event of a collision.
Japan is currently very active in the field of space travel. On Saturday, the country launched its new H3 launch vehicle into space on the third attempt. At the end of January, Japan became the fifth country in the world to land on the moon with the unmanned SLIM space probe.
Source: Krone
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