Astroscale\u2019s British subsidiary has completed the critical design review (CDR) for its satellite servicer under the End-of-Life Services by Astroscale-Multiple (ELSA-M) program, the company said Tuesday. The milestone paves the way for the next phase of assembly, integration and testing, ahead of a mission to remove a defunct OneWeb broadband satellite from low Earth orbit (LEO) in 2025.<\/p>\n
The 500-kilogram spacecraft, developed mostly with private funding and support from the UK Space Agency, will use a magnetic capture system to dock with a OneWeb satellite equipped with a matching interface. The satellite will then be steered into a controlled atmospheric reentry, where it will burn up safely.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe completion of the CDR represents a significant step forward in delivering our first commercial debris removal mission,\u201d Astroscale said in a statement. The design review was validated by Eutelsat, OneWeb\u2019s parent company, and the European Space Agency.<\/p>\n
The mission was initially scheduled for 2024 but was delayed following Eutelsat\u2019s acquisition of OneWeb. It is seen as a precursor to a commercial debris removal service Astroscale hopes to deploy by the end of the decade.<\/p>\n
ELSA-M builds on an earlier Astroscale mission from 2021 that demonstrated satellite rendezvous and capture in LEO. However, that trial was cut short after thruster issues prevented a planned de-orbit maneuver. The new servicer is designed to handle multiple satellite removals within a single mission.<\/p>\n
Astroscale is also competing for a separate contract from the UK Space Agency to remove two satellites in the coming years, a program that includes rival bidder ClearSpace. The Swiss startup recently completed the second phase of the UK\u2019s Active Debris Removal (ADR) mission.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Astroscale\u2019s British subsidiary has completed the critical design review (CDR) for its satellite servicer under the End-of-Life Services by Astroscale-Multiple (ELSA-M) program, the company said Tuesday. The milestone paves the way for the next phase of assembly, integration and testing, ahead of a mission to remove a defunct OneWeb broadband satellite from low Earth orbit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20939,"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":[1816,1583,831,20,6216],"class_list":["post-20938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-astroscale","tag-clearspace","tag-european-space-agency","tag-satellite","tag-uk-space-agency"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20938"}],"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=20938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}