Photo/Illutration A photo shows a piece of space debris taken from a distance of about 15 meters, with the Earth seen in the bottom right corner. (Provided by Astroscale Japan Inc.)

Astroscale Japan Inc. has announced that it has successfully approached a piece of orbital debris traveling at a high speed to inspect it from a distance of about 15 meters.

The Tokyo-based startup developing space debris removal technologies added that it plans to start removing "space junk" from orbit by the end of March 2028.

"We want to realize a service to refuel satellites in the future, in addition to removing debris," Astroscale President Hideki Kato said at a news conference on Feb. 26. "The latest mission became a big step forward to providing a 'space road service.'"

The volume of retired satellites, broken-up rocket bodies and other space junk in orbit continues to increase.

According to an estimate by the European Space Agency, there are 40,500 pieces of space debris larger than 10 centimeters.

There are also 1.1 million pieces between 1 and 10 cm in size and 130 million particles between 1 millimeter and 1 cm as of June 2024.

In 2021, a piece of debris struck and made a hole in a robotic arm of the International Space Station.

It is crucial to remove large debris pieces from congested orbits because they could collide with each other and shatter into smaller pieces to produce more debris.

But it is not easy to remove debris because the objects travel at seven to eight times the speed of a rifle bullet while their precise locations are unknown.

Commissioned by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Astroscale launched an artificial satellite in February 2024 to demonstrate the technologies necessary for debris removal.

It approached the upper stage of the H-IIA rocket No. 15 launched in 2009 measuring about 11 meters in length and 4 meters in diameter and took photos.

It determined the precise location of the target using infrared ray and other instruments, circled around it and approached the piece at a distance of about 15 meters.

Each maneuver was the world's first achievement as far as being made public, according to the company.

It also demonstrated the technology to move away from the upper stage after detecting an anomaly and approach the target again.

Astroscale said the results were beyond expectations.

For the next phase, the company intends to launch another satellite by the end of March 2028 to capture a piece of debris with a robotic arm and re-enter the Earth's atmosphere to burn it up.

It is more challenging because the satellite needs to change its trajectory while holding onto a heavy piece of space junk.

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