Japan\u2019s Ministry of Defense (MoD) has awarded Astroscale Japan a contract valued at 1 billion yen ($6.4 million) to develop a gripping mechanism designed for use with national satellites, the company said.<\/p>\n
Under the contract, Astroscale Japan will design the mechanism and conduct ground-based demonstrations to test its ability to grip national security satellites under a range of simulated on-orbit conditions. The work is intended to support Japan\u2019s efforts to strengthen its defence capabilities in space.<\/p>\n
The contract falls under the \u201cMission Assurance\u201d pillar of Japan\u2019s Space Domain Defense Guidelines, which were issued in 2025 to guide the MoD\u2019s approach to space security. That pillar focuses on protecting satellites and ensuring the resilience of space-based assets.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis newly awarded contract for the development of a gripping mechanism \u2026 further solidifies our path toward contributing to national security by leveraging our proximity and capture technologies,\u201d said Eddie Kato, president and managing director of Astroscale Japan. \u201cWe will continue to apply the expertise we have developed through our core on-orbit servicing technologies.\u201d<\/p>\n
The award marks Astroscale Japan\u2019s second contract with the defence ministry. Last year, the company received a separate responsive space contract to develop a prototype small geostationary orbit (GEO) satellite aimed at enhancing space domain awareness.<\/p>\n
Astroscale, which specialises in on-orbit servicing and debris mitigation technologies, has positioned its capture and rendezvous systems as dual-use capabilities that can support both commercial and national security missions.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Japan\u2019s Ministry of Defense (MoD) has awarded Astroscale Japan a contract valued at 1 billion yen ($6.4 million) to develop a gripping mechanism designed for use with national satellites, the company said. Under the contract, Astroscale Japan will design the mechanism and conduct ground-based demonstrations to test its ability to grip national security satellites under […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5725,1816,6821,6822,6823,233,377,6608,462,20,6824,449],"class_list":["post-20429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-asia","tag-astroscale","tag-astroscale-japan","tag-defence-and-space-policy","tag-eddie-kato","tag-iss","tag-japan","tag-japan-ministry-of-defense","tag-national-security","tag-satellite","tag-satellite-protection","tag-space-security"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20429"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20429\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}