Achi news desk-
A space junk just had an epic crash.
The ADRAS-J satellite, operated by the Japanese company Astroscale, moved within a few hundred meters of the body of a rocket launched this month, capturing an impressive photo to commemorate the feat.
“Behold, the world’s first image of space debris captured through rendezvous and proximity operations during our ADRAS-J mission,” Astroscale said today (April 26) in a statement post on X who shared the photo.
Related: Kessler syndrome and the space debris problem
ADRAS-J (short for “Active Debris Remove by Astroscale-Japan”) was launched into Earth orbit atop the Rocket Lab Electron vehicle on February 18.
The main task of the 330-pound (150 kilogram) probe is to rendezvous with, and study, a large piece of space junk — the upper stage of the Japanese H-2A rocket that launched the GOSAT Earth Observation satellite in 2009. Such work will help to test technologies that future spacecraft can use to service satellites or capture and deorbit debris objects, according to Astroscale.
Earlier this month, ADRAS-J got within a few hundred kilometers of the rocket’s body, which is about 36 feet long and 13 feet wide (11 by 4 meters). The probe then moved into a “proximity phase,” conducting multiple maneuvers that reduced the distance to a few hundred meters—a milestone that the newly released photo preserves for posterity.
And more images are likely to come soon too.
“In the next phase of the mission, ADRAS-J will attempt to capture additional images of the upper stage through various controlled approach operations,” Astroscale wrote in an update today. “The images and data collected are expected to be critical to better understanding the debris and provide critical information for future removal efforts.”
The largest, most dangerous debris objects may need to be removed to keep Earth’s orbit safe and accessible, many exploration advocates say. Rocket bodies like the H-2A upper stage are like giant bullets whizzing around the Earth; if they slam into another piece of junk or an active satellite, the smash could spawn a debris cloud that could lead to a cascade of catastrophic collisions.
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The newly released ADRAS-J photo isn’t the first close-up view of space junk we’ve ever seen, per se noted spaceflight historian Gunther Krebs.
In 2003, the US Air Force Research Laboratory’s XSS-10 satellite encountered the upper part of a defunct Delta II rocket and captured an image of the object. However, this was a less complex task than the newly undertaken ADRAS-J; XSS-10 had launched aboard the same Delta II.
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