Airbus and Astroscale expand in-orbit servicing partnership

TAMPA, Fla. — Airbus is expanding its partnership with in-orbit servicing venture Astroscale to explore ways to collaborate beyond potentially removing space junk and refueling satellites.

The companies announced a memorandum of understanding (MoU) Aug. 12 — between Airbus Defense and Space and the Japanese venture’s British subsidiary — to focus on U.K.-based in-orbit servicing and manufacturing opportunities in particular.

Astroscale UK is already looking into using robotic arm technology from Airbus for future debris removal and satellite refueling missions. 

The UK Space Agency recently awarded an Astroscale UK-led group a 2 million pound ($2.6 million) contract to study the feasibility of a refueling mission using a servicer with an Airbus robotic arm.

Andrew Faiola, Astroscale UK’s commercial vice president, said the expanded MoU also covers maintaining, repairing and upgrading in-orbit satellites, constructing and assembling spacecraft components directly in space and technologies for enhancing rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO).

In-orbit upgrades

Publicly traded Astroscale has raised more than $375 million in private funding rounds since setting out more than a decade ago to build a business around removing hazardous debris from orbit, such as defunct spacecraft that have run out of fuel.

The venture has also secured government missions across Europe and Japan to develop the servicing technologies needed to operate commercially one day. 

After demonstrating a magnetic capture mechanism in low Earth orbit in 2021, a separate Astroscale spacecraft is currently inspecting a Japanese rocket body as part of plans to later remove it from LEO with a servicer equipped with a robotic arm. 

“RPO is Astroscale’s core technology which allows the servicer satellite to safely approach and capture debris,” Faiola said via email.

Under the MoU, Astroscale and Airbus will explore ways to boost the development of navigation and docking technologies for satellite servicing and debris removal missions they did not specify.

According to the news release, the expanded partnership seeks to combine Airbus’s satellite manufacturing and space systems heritage with technologies Astroscale is developing for in-orbit servicing.

As for in-orbit assembly and manufacturing, Faiola said “Astroscale recognises this area as a future development necessary to achieve a circular economy in space and is currently exploring different opportunities for refurbishment as next steps.”

Airbus declined to comment.

The aerospace and defense giant’s push into the fledgling in-orbit servicing market comes as the group seeks strategic options for its space business, following schedule and cost issues that led to a billion-dollar charge in its latest earning results.

The company participated six years ago in the European Union-funded RemoveDEBRIS project, which aimed to validate technologies for removing space junk using a net, harpoon and vision-based navigation system.

Surrey Satellite Technology Limited, Airbus’s U.K.-based small satellite subsidiary, was also one of the contenders for a UK Space Agency (UKSA) mission to remove two spacecraft from LEO in 2026.

However, UKSA in 2022 shortlisted groups led by Astroscale and Switzerland-based ClearSpace for that mission and is still deciding between them. 

SSTL built the 17-kilogram client satellite that Astroscale’s 175-kilogram servicer captured in 2021 as part of ELSA-d, of End-of-Life Services by Astroscale-demonstration.

The ELSA-d servicer later lost half its thrusters, making it unable to recapture the client for a controlled descent that would have seen them jointly burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere. Instead, the client satellite was left to decay naturally over the next several years.

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